Breaking In (Fox)
Premieres: Wednesday, April 6 at 9:30/8:30c

Christian Slater leads this workplace comedy as Oz, the mastermind behind a digital security firm that shows its clients how vulnerable they are by outsmarting their current security measures. Reaper’s Bret Harrison, Odette Yustman, Trevor Moore, and Alphonso McAuley round out Oz’s team. [Source]

• What it’s about: Cameron Price (Bret Harrison) is your typical college slacker with Van Wilder syndrome. Even with seven years of schooling under his belt, he’d much rather pull pranks and hack into teachers’ emails instead of actually graduating. But once high-tech security firm Contra Security hears about Cameron’s talents, it’s only a matter of time before they come calling. Boss Oz (Christian Slater) literally breaks into Cameron’s dorm room and takes him under his wing as an intern at the company, which attempts extreme heists (think stealing cars) to win over clients.
• Where it works: Harrison is just as charming here as he was on Reaper, and several of the quirky secondary characters show promise (I’m particularly a fan of the hovering office secretary Carol and Smallville’s Michael Rosenbaum as sophomoric dimwit, Dutch). [READ THE REST HERE]

Last season’s Fox comedy pilot Breaking In may make it to the air after all. I hear the network is in negotiations with Sony Pictures TV to pick up the project starring Christian Slater to series for midseason. The single-camera workplace comedy set at a digital security firm, is rumored as a possible replacement for underperforming fall comedy Running Wilde, which has not received a back order. Fox’s midseason schedule announced in May has Running Wilde airing after American Idol’s 90-minute performance show on Tuesday, sharing the 9:30 PM slot with midseason comedy Mixed Signals.

Hope for the Sony TV/Happy Madison-produced Breaking In never faded away. The pilot, written by Adam F. Goldberg and directed by Seth Gordon, had buzz and tested very well but ultimately missed the cut for a series pickup at Fox in May. In June, the network gave it a new lease of life with an order for 2 additional scripts, leading to Sony TV’s decision to extend the options on the cast, which is led by Slater and also includes Reaper star Bret Harrison. [SOURCE]

With network upfront presentations only a month away, tis the season for publications to begin prognosticating on which shows will return next season, which shows are on the bubble and which shows are as good as dead.

That’s how I know that The CW’s “Reaper” is dead. “Reaper” is as dead as “Knight Rider” and “The Ex-List” and “Do Not Disturb.” USA Today told me so and The Hollywood Reporter agrees and since they have “sources,” I can only assume they’re right.

The problem is that I look at the ratings every Wednesday morning and what I see doesn’t look nearly so clear-cut. While I’m not going to try telling you that “Reaper” has earned its place on The CW’s schedule for next year, it certainly has earned as much of a second look as “Privileged,” which both esteemed publications agree is, at the very least On the Bubble.

My argument after the break…

Perhaps The Hollywood Reporter and USA Today have decided that “Reaper” is dead because “Reaper” certainly was supposed to be dead. The CW brought “Reaper” back for a shortened second season as a tip of the hat to a series that seemed to have found its voice in its post-strike episodes. After idling on the shelf for a while, “Reaper” was scheduled for a mid-March premiere in the Tuesday 9 p.m. timeslot.

Then “American Idol” came along and crushed “90210″ in their first head-to-head showdown. The CW, wisely hoping to protect its fledgling crown jewel from a ratings buzzsaw targeting the identical audience (and then-some), moved “90210″ to 9 p.m. The network also pushed up the premiere of “Reaper” by two weeks (reducing the possible promo time) and placed it in the 8 p.m. hole opposite the most popular show on television. A show that creatively finished its first season like a lion, entered its second season as a lamb, a sacrificial one.

A strange thing has happened.

“Reaper,” which could have been forgiven for pulling in “13 – Fear Is Real” numbers on Tuesday night, has held its own. OK. That’s a bit of an overstatement. “Reaper” premiered on March 3 with an estimated 2.36 million viewers, just over a 10th of what “Idol” did that same night and the sort of numbers that NBC couldn’t even tolerate on a Saturday night from “Kings.” In subsequent airings, the ratings have fallen only slightly. For the season, “Reaper” is  averaging nearly 2.25 million viewers per week. Read the rest of this entry »