If I Was A NBC Network Executive

It's no secret that NBC isn't doing too well in the ratings department. Not even having some minor controversy around The Book of Daniel seems to be helping them out with their averages. So here's what type of shows I'd greenlight in order to get the peacock back to it's old strutting self.

Monday

• Novela slot #1: Your sister network is Telemundo, and yet you haven't tried airing a novela in primetime--even in the summer? Seriously, just get some voice actors to dub lines for the SAP channel, put some English captions on, and voila!
• City Story: You're already cutting back on Dateline, so why not go out to the affiliates and ask them to produce an hour long news programme about a local case or concern? The local anchorpeople get their egos stroked nationally, and the cost to the network is minimal. City Confidential and many of the programmes on Court TV prove that there is definitely an appetite for this type of show.

Tuesday

• Orange Road: A live action version of the 1980's Japanese manga and anime series about a teenage boy with telepathy and other powers and the love triangle he winds up getting himself into. Instead of it being Out of This World mark II, treat it like Smallville, except make it a half-hour.
• Top of the Pops: You cannot possibly mess up in the adapting of this BBC import. Quite simply, it's just musical performances of the songs that are on the charts. That's all. No need to sex it up beyond that.
• Don't mess with Law & Order: SVU.

Wednesday

• The Defiant: Grosse Pointe, for the brief period it lasted, was a cult hit and it's coming to DVD. Similar in spirit, just reset the action to New York and make the show-within-a-show a faltering daytime soap. Desperate Housewives set in daytime television.
• Untitled Bradley Cooper dramedy: Bradley Cooper does comedic asides, looks pretty, and strips off frequently. Figure out the plot later, you're just trying to hold onto viewers until Law & Order.
• Don't mess with Law & Order.

Thursday

Let's face it. You cannot rest on the coattails of your success in the 1980's and 1990's comedies anymore. The Apprentice isn't bringing the amount of viewers that it used to, and neither is ER.

• Volunteers: No, not an adaptation of the 1985 movie of the same name, but a sitcom set in a community centre. Think Night Court.
• My Life in A Cul-de-Sac: Suburban sitcom explicitly set in Northern Virginia. A recent widow takes in her gay brother after his messy divorce. Murphy Brown meets Will & Grace. Get Tim & Tyne Daly or Rosanna & David Arquette to star, keep the humour political and current, and do not make either character asexual, dammit.
• Building Tomorrow: An aspiring pharmaceutical engineer comes up against corruption and greed at her new firm, and tries to reform the system from the inside. 8 week miniseries. If it catches on, do a movie wrap up and move on. Don't flag a dead horse.

Friday

• Novela slot #2: See Monday.
• Autobiography: Let's be honest here, we're living in a world where everybody wants their 15 minutes. Let's give them a full hour. Everybody has a life story, and here we'll give them an hour to tell it and show it via re-enactments.

Saturday

• Playhouse 90: A revival of the critically lauded show from the 1950's and early 1960's. You know good and hell well that CBS isn't going to even attempt to revive it. And by the way, make it live.

Sunday

• The Other Side of Me: Dramedy about Marie, an accountant in Kansas City and Michael, a minor-league catcher in San Antonio. In their daily lives, they dream about the other and the question is whether Marie is Michael or is it the other way around. Get this before HBO or Showtime snaps it up.
• Don't mess with Law & Order: CI, or else Dick Wolf will have Vincent D'Onofrio hunt you down and overact you to death.