Friday, October 15, 2004 - 2:20 PM
'LAX' Flies to Wednesdays, 'Hawaii' to Hiatus
By Brian Ford Sullivan


LOS ANGELES (thefutoncritic.com) -- In its first major overhaul of the 2004-05 season, NBC has placed its freshman drama "Hawaii" on indefinite hiatus and will move fellow newcomer "LAX" to fill its Wednesday, 8:00/7:00c slot starting next month.

"Hawaii," despite being off the schedule, will continue production on its 13-episode order. The series has averaged a disappointing 7.19 million viewers in its three airings since the 2004-05 season officially began, second only to "Last Comic Standing" (5.78 million) as the Peacock's least-watched program.

Meanwhile as for "LAX," it's not exactly clear when the series will take over the Wednesday slot. Monday's new episode will be the show's final airing in said slot as pre-emptions are scheduled for Monday, October 25 ("The 2004 Radio Music Awards") and Monday, November 1 ("Saturday Night Live Presidential Bash 2004") with the three-week reality series "The $25 Million Hoax" taking over the period after that. So far this season, "LAX" has averaged a far from spectacular 8.15 million viewers.

And finally on a positive front, several Peacock insiders have confirmed it has picked up two additional episodes of its Monday hit "Las Vegas" bringing its season total to 24 episodes.

Full details on "Hoax," about a person who has to convince her family and friends that she's the winner of a $25 million jackpot, as well as the "LAX" move are expected to be released by NBC shortly.

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/cgi/gofuton.cgi?action=newswire&id=6753

I knew this would happen. both shows will be gone soon

Although, Hawaii is not officially cancelled, my guess is it never comes back.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NBC takes ‘Hawaii’ TV
series off the air
The police drama will continue
production to finish 13 episodes


By Tim Ryan
tryan@starbulletin.com
NBC's police drama "Hawaii," which has produced poor ratings since its premiere last month, has been pulled from the network's lineup indefinitely.

The series will remain in production here through early December to complete its 13-episode commitment to the network. Eight episodes have been filmed so far.

There is no word from the network whether "Hawaii" will get an order for the next nine episodes to complete a full 22-show season, but that now seems a long shot, sources said.

NBC will let the production know early next month whether it has an order for the other nine episodes.

While "Hawaii" has not been officially canceled, this is as close as a production can get to that and still be breathing, a "Hawaii" source said.

"We are indefinitely on hold," the production's publicist said.

"Hawaii" struggled to attract viewers in its early going and then got clobbered when ABC's hit series "Lost" begin airing late last month.

Earlier this week, NBC officials were considering moving "Hawaii" to either Monday or Friday nights. "Hawaii" co-star Eric Balfour had been telling people the show was moving to Friday.

"We don't know what changed the network's minds," a production source said.

The cast and crew were called together yesterday afternoon at the production's Mapunapuna sound stage to hear the news.

"People naturally were very somber," one source said. "Glum would be a good description."

Each "Hawaii" episode cost more than $2.1 million, or more than $26 million in all so far, most of it spent here.

"Hawaii" stars Balfour, Michael Biehn, Sharif Atkins, Ivan Sergei, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and Aya Sumika.

"Hawaii" producers had been feeling confident that the show would not be removed from the schedule because two other series on NBC were also struggling and the network did not have anything to replace "Hawaii."

Then today came the surprise announcement that the unscripted series "$25 Million Dollar Hoax" would premiere on Monday, Nov. 8, and the struggling "LAX" series was moving to Wednesdays in "Hawaii's" slot.

I never watched Hawaii but when I read the plots of each episode, it sounded like a very good series. This hiatus isn't surprising considering that it went up against Lost.

I wasn't too surprised. I caught the show once on Tivo and thought it was underwhelming. But there was some eye candy.

HAWAII is now OFFICIALLY CANCELLED...

www.thefutoncritic.com

NBC.com has a new Hawaii episode listed for Wednesday December 1st 2004. Obviously NBC is going to burn off the 1 or 2 episodes left after November sweeps.