FX has a bunch of new comedy inventory coming up this summer, including new seasons of “Louie” and “Wilfred,” the debut of Charlie Sheen’s “Anger Management” and Russell Brand’s new talk show “Strangely Uplifting.” Turns out the plan is to have them all air on the same night, starting Thursday, June 28.
“Wilfred” worked well as a lead-in for “Louie” last season, and that arrangement will continue, with the dark man-in-a-dog-suit comedy airing at 10 and Louis C.K.’s one-man show at 10:30. Both those shows have 13-episode orders.
They’ll be followed for six weeks by “Strangely Uplifting,” with Brand working in front of a live studio audience. It was originally supposed to premiere this spring but got pushed to summer due to a scheduling conflict for Brand.
“Anger Management” – Sheen’s post-“Two and a Half Men” return to sitcoms, co-starring Selma Blair and Shawnee Smith – will air regularly at 9:30, but the night of the 28th we’ll get two original episodes at 9 and 9:30. (Every week after that, the previous week’s episode will repeat at 9.) Because of the content of most of its series (and because the early primetime hours tend to go to FX’s movie library or syndicated repeats of shows like, well, “Two and a Half Men”), they haven’t aired an original series before 10 in this post-“Shield” era for the network.(*) “Anger Management” will get 10 episodes for its first season, and like Tyler Perry’s TBS sitcoms, the deal is structured such that if the show hits a certain ratings threshold, FX automatically orders 90 more. At press tour, Sheen and producer Bruce Helford seemed unfazed by the idea of doing that many, and at a much faster pace than a network sitcom.
(*) UPDATE: An FX spokesman pointed out that “Anger Management” (which is technically an acquired series) will be rated TV-14, where all of FX’s originals tend to be TV-MA.