Some of you were dying to find out who Felicity chose, Ben or Noel. Maybe you're curious about what Two Guys and a Girl looks like without The Pizza Place . Maybe you were the one. Previewing new fall shows, without commercials, in advance of their broadcast is relatively fun work. But it's impossible to guess how many great pilots will make consistently good TV shows, week after week.
Producers often take a year perfecting the pilots filmed last spring.
But when they must grind programs out week after week, anything can happen. Fox's second Get Real completely switched the premise, fixing the parents' troubled marriage and turning normal teen-agers into the dysfunctional ones. Sometimes good shows go sour without warning. Nielsen numbers are not clear indicators. The Practice is just as good at 10 p.m. Sunday as it was at 10 p.m. Saturday, where ratings were terrible.