Around the Horn -- NBC Cancels Lipstick Jungle, My Own Worst Enemy, Ben Silverman Still Employed

(Sorry, I just forgot about the Around the Horn thing for the last couple days. What can I tell you, aging is a bitch.)

And where is Ben? I mean, right now, where is Ben? It's 8:50 am as I write this, and if the stories are to be believed, Ben won't even wake up for another couple hours.

(And then the butler on Elisabeth Murdoch's yacht will wake him with a mimosa and a couple aspirin.)

Broadcasting & Cable:

While there is no official word from NBC, sources say My Own Worst Enemy will complete its ninth episode and no further episodes will be produced.

The Christian Slater drama had failed to catch on in its Monday timeslot at 10pm despite a Heroes lead-in that itself has suffered as of late.

The show, one of NBC’s major fall hopes, was prominently promoted during NBC’s Olympics coverage but the network did not debut it until October 13.

Lipstick Jungle will finish its 13^th episode and no additional orders have been made.

The Sex and the City-esque series' future looked gloomy after it was relegated from Wednesdays to Fridays recently as NBC went to a crime-drama focused Wednesday night lineup.

Fishbowl LA:

NBC, which is having its own internal problems with peripatetic co-chairman Ben Silverman, is trying to restructure its entire line-up. Gone are the days of Thursday night ratings-dominating schedules of "Seinfeld," "Friends" and "ER."

That means NBC will likely be finding a new chairman of programming.

TV watchers nationwide are staring at their watches wondering how quickly that will happen.

More after the jump.

Hibberd at THR Live Feed:

Though the "Lipstick" number was an improvement on the previous week, the show's ratings have been below the line for a while now, and sunk into the red zone after the drama moved to Fridays.

NBC's expectation for the return of "Lipstick" was modest, but "Enemy" was considered an important show. A spy thriller with a grown-up budget inspired by the Bourne movies, "Enemy" received NBC's coveted post-"Heroes" time period. That valuable Monday hour of scheduling real estate has become less worthwhile in recent weeks, however, as "Heroes" shed viewers -- weakening the lead-in for "Enemy" and hastening its decline.

TVByTheNumbers.com:

While MOWE doesn’t look so awful in our Renew/Cancel Index, it’s one of those deals where a combination of events was in play.  One, NBC has pretty woeful numbers, and MOWE did better in its early airings and has steadily dropped. The same could be said for its lead in, Heroes, but Heroes still at least pulls numbers in the demographics.

Their latest overnight numbers indicated that the Slater show lost 3.58 rating points off it's Heroes lead-in and exactly half it's rating in the demo.

You can analyze it any way you want, I just don't believe there are enough people who like the guy to make the show work.

As far as Brooke Shields goes, I very much enjoy her on the TV, but what I'm enjoying are her Volkswagen ads. If you click over to RoutanBoom.org there's more and funnier web content there, btw.

I think Brooke should spend the rest of the TV season making really funny clips with her husband Chirs Henchy at FunnyOrDie.com. I love her to death (well, you know, as much as you can "love" someone you don't know who you see on the teevee) but Lipstick Jungle was never gonna be Sex And The City.

Wrong tone. Not funny. Not sexy. Well, except for Robert Buckley taking his shirt off, anyway. That's why I left you pics of Buckley (above) as a parting gift.

And finally, Brooke's VW work. Click below.

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