THE producers of “Vengeance Unlimited” have joined with the show’s fans to mount a last-ditch effort to revive the series.
The producers were scheduled to present the case for saving “VU” yesterday in a meeting in Los Angeles with ABC programming honchos Jamie Tarses and Stu Bloomberg. Plans called for Tarses and Bloomberg to view a newly produced promotional trailer for the show, plus an episode, and hear how the producers plan “to make ‘VU’ more attractive” to ABC, in the words of co-creator David Simkins, who wrote about the upcoming meeting on a fan website.
Some of those fans got together to buy an ad in the Hollywood edition of Daily Variety to persuade ABC to pick up the series for fall. The ad ran on Tuesday. All of the networks are in the midst of drawing up their fall plans, which will be announced the week of May17 in New York.
“Vengeance Unlimited” went on hiatus last February after airing only 14 weeks on Thursday nights at 8 o’clock. The show, starring Michael Madsen as a mysterious vigilante named Mr. Chapel, drew an average of 7.1 million viewers per episode, according to Nielsen. The show ranks 112th out of more than 170 prime-time shows this season.
While “hiatus” is often a synonym for “cancelled,” an ABC spokesman confirmed yesterday that “VU” is a candidate for ABC’s fall schedule. ABC is expected to render a decision by next Tuesday. Stay tuned.
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It seemed like a clever idea: With “Home Improvement,” “Mad About You” and “The Nanny” all ending their network runs in May, why not run the syndicated reruns back-to-back during the same month?
And so, Ch.5 did just that, but only for a week. That was all the time it took for General Manager Mike Wach to decide that “Mad About You” wasn’t working at 5:30 p.m. The show occupied the time period for five days last week, preceded by “Home Improvement” at 5, and followed by two episodes of “The Nanny.”
This week, “Mad About You” is back at midnight and “The Simpsons” has moved into the 5:30 time slot. Wach said he decided to make the switch (starting this past Monday) as soon as he saw Friday’s rating for “Mad About You,” a 2.5.
“My feeling was that after seeing the show in its first week, I did not want to go into the May [sweeps] with what could be a weak link in the 5-8 p.m. block,” Wach explained yesterday.
Ch.5 is now airing frequent promo spots announcing that “The Simpsons” can now be seen three times a day, with back-to-back episodes continuing to run at 7 and 7:30 p.m.
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CHANNEL SURFING: Kaity Tong is no longer ending the 10 o’clock news on Ch.11 with the words “‘Seinfeld’s’ next!” The phrase, which she inherited after Jack Cafferty left the station, has been dropped because Ch.11 is repeating the newscast the next morning at 5 a.m., a time when “Seinfeld” is definitely not next. Thanks to Channel Surfer Bill C. for catching this one. … Did anybody else hear Bill Beutel refer to Joe DiMaggio as George DiMaggio last week on Ch.7’s 11 o’clock news? … Those weird commercials featuring Claymation figures of celebrities drinking Lipton Brisk Iced Tea just got weirder: In a new one, movie tough guy Bruce Willis faces off against George and Weezy Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford). Bizarre!
