HOLLYWOOD REPORT: Playboy Club cancelled after only 3 episodes

Playboy Club cancelled after only 3 episodes

Amber Heard, Naturi Naughton and Leah Renee are shown in a scene from 'The Playboy Club.'

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NEW YORK — NBC's Playboy bunnies are being replaced by Brian Williams.
The network said Tuesday that its 1960s period piece drama "The Playboy Club" is being cancelled, acting less than 24 hours after the new series drew only 3.5 million people for its third episode. It's the first cancellation of the new fall TV season.
Williams' new prime-time newsmagazine, "Rock Center," will take over the 10 p.m. Eastern time slot on Mondays, starting Halloween night. Reruns of the drama "Prime Suspect" will fill the hour for the next three weeks.
"The Playboy Club" started weak, with 5 million viewers for its first episode, and didn't improve.
Set in a Chicago club and evoking the era and attitude made fashionable by "Man Men," the drama was hurt by strong competition. Both "Hawaii 5-0" on CBS and "Castle" on ABC are their networks' strongest 10 p.m. dramas, said Bill Gorman of the website TV By the Numbers. The viewership for "Castle" is up 8 per cent over the first two weeks of last year, Nielsen said.
NBC's drama drew some mixed reviews and protests by activists who tried to encourage an advertiser boycott, deeming the material inappropriate for network television.
Mike Hale of The New York Times wrote that the series was "an unwieldy and mostly humdrum combination of mob tale and backstage musical."
In his pan, Steve Johnson of the Chicago Tribune harkened back to the magazine: "Like mean people or rainy Saturdays, the Playboy Club is, alas, a turn-off."
Frazier Moore of The Associated Press, however, called the show "a plush escape" and selected it one of his 10 new shows worth watching.
Williams, NBC's top news anchor, has been assembling talent in anticipation of a fall launch. "Rock Center" will feature Harry Smith and Kate Snow as correspondents, along with Meredith Vieira, Nancy Snyderman, Richard Engle, Matt Lauer and Ann Curry.
NBC had not given the show a time slot initially but promised one would become available when one of the new shows failed.

Controversial "Playboy Club" first victim of TV season

• Cast member Amber Heard speaks as co-stars Eddie Cibrian (L), David Krumholtz 

LOS ANGELES - Controversial new drama "The Playboy Club" was axed on Tuesday by NBC after just three episodes, making it the first victim of the new fall TV season.
NBC announced that its new, news magazine show "Rock Center with Brian Williams", will take the place of the 1960s era show on Monday evening, starting on October 31. New police drama "Prime Suspect" will fill the slot in the meantime.
"The Playboy Club", set in the early 1960s in the legendary men's nightclub, centers around the lives of Playboy Bunnies and customers, drew controversy even before it aired.
Leading U.S. feminist Gloria Steinem told Reuters in August that she hoped viewers would boycott the TV series. Steinem, who wrote an expose in the 1960s of the New York City Playboy Club, said the clubs were "the tackiest place on earth".
The Parents Television Council, which had called it a "degrading and sexualizing program", said on Tuesday it was pleased at the cancellation.
The small but vociferous TV watchdog took much of the credit for the show's demise, noting in a statement that it had called on its members and "other concerned citizens to contact local NBC affiliates, and (asked) advertisers whether the Playboy brand aligns with their corporate image."
Seven advertisers pulled commercials from the second episode although it was not clear whether it was a direct result of the PTC campaign.
But the show, which was produced in conjunction with Hugh Hefner's Playboy Enterprises, also suffered from weak ratings and generally poor reviews.
Claims in August by producers that the show was empowering for women also ruffled feathers. The Hollywood Reporter in a September review said "The Playboy Club" had "neither the ambition, writing nor acting to make such a comparison (to TV show "Mad Men") anything more than a chuckle-heavy notion."
Starring Amber Heard and Eddie Cibrian, it drew just 4.1 million viewers in its third outing on Monday, according to ratings data.
"The Playboy Club" was one of 12 new scripted shows for NBC under its new majority owner, Comcast Corp, in a bid to pull the network up from its long-time bottom place among the four leading U.S. broadcasters.
On a brighter note, NBC announced on Tuesday that it had ordered full seasons of its new comedies "Up All Night", starring Christina Applegate and Will Arnett, and "Whitney" which is written by, and stars, stand-up comic Whitney Cummings.
"We made comedy an important goal for us this season and I'm very pleased to be making full season commitments to both 'Whitney' and 'Up All Night'," said NBC entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt.