Schedule Five-Spot, WE 4/15/12 - New Girl, Game of Thrones, Breaking In, Hell's Kitchen, The Game

Another edition covering two weeks! Technically speaking, here's the Schedule Five-Spot for the week ending April 15, 2012:

New Girl - Fox handed out renewals to their Tuesday lineup of Glee, New Girl and Raising Hope. New Girl has dropped a ton from its early fall numbers but is still easily Fox's biggest success in the live action half-hour arena in quite some time. Critically beloved Raising Hope probably made its case when it held up pretty well in its tryout at 8/7c this spring. Glee remains way down year-to-year but certainly deserves a season four, even if it'll likely keep bleeding.

Game of Thrones - We don't know what new ratings heights Game of Thrones will find as season two progresses, but so far so good. The first two episodes have more than doubled the ratings of the first two of last season. That made last week's season three renewal a no-brainer. The announcement might have taken a little longer than some superfans wanted, and there was no multi-season renewal, but I wouldn't worry about this show's future.

Breaking In - As I said in my sitcom manifesto last week, it's kind of a shame for Fox that the sitcom had its best autumn in ages, then Fox's midseason block was saddled with the likes of Breaking In. Last week, it got pulled from its scheduled Tuesday 9:30 return starting on April 24. Now, it'll likely get some summer burnoff theatre action alongside the also pulled I Hate My Teenage Daughter.

Hell's Kitchen - The Gordon Ramsay love-fest continues on Fox as they gave Ramsay's first (and still highest-rated) Fox show a renewal for seasons 11 and 12. That's in addition to this summer's upcoming season 10. This is the rare entertainment show that's aired an original episode in all twelve months of the year, though it's settled back into a summer role lately. But if their sure-to-be-revamped Monday flops in fall 2012, don't rule out a midseason return.

The Game - BET will be bringing back all three of its sitcoms. The Game has taken a huge dive from the miraculously huge ratings of its first BET season, but it's still cable's biggest sitcom (and still does a lot better than its later CW ratings). Let's Stay Together has held its Game lead-in a lot better in season two. Reed Between the Lines started well after the BET Awards and then dropped to modest levels, but apparently not modest enough.

The Five-Spots are my recaps of what aired, what got renewed/cancelled and what rated well or poorly last week in TV. For more Five-Spots, see the Index.