The schedule shuffling just continues for ABC’s well-liked, little-watched comedy “Happy Endings.”
In a strange release that was held til Wednesday (February 13) evening, ABC announced that starting on March 29, “Happy Endings” will move to Friday nights, airing back-to-back episodes in the 8 p.m. hour. While obviously shifts to Friday night don’t need to be a death sentence — “Fringe” and “Supernatural” can always be held out as signs for hope — the double-airing strategy certainly looking like burning off.
ABC has already tried double-dipping “Happy Endings” in a different atypical fashion this season, airing bonus episodes on Sunday night in the 10 p.m. hour for several weeks along with “Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23.” That move failed to generate even marginal additional sampling. “Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23” was soon pulled from its schedule and effectively cancelled.
It should be noted that ABC had scheduled “Happy Endings” to end its Tuesday schedule at the end of March back in December. This just preempts a handful of pre-March episode and gives home to a handful of additional remaining episodes. “Last Man Standing” and “Malibu Country” had also already been slated to wrap their Friday runs ahead of the May end of the season.
ABC’s late-Wednesday release also revealed that “Celebrity Wife Swap” will take over the 8 p.m. hour on Tuesdays starting on February 26 and that the struggling first-year cooking show “The Taste” will move back an hour to 9 p.m. that same night, taking over the “Happy Endings” slot.