‘Playing It Straight’ Put on Hiatus, ‘Forever Eden’ Shifted

Despite a fair amount of publicity and the addition of yet another twist to the dating show genre, Fox’s Playing It Straight never really caught on with viewers. The show averaged under four million viewers and slipping, and it has become a casualty of some recent Fox schedule changes.

Playing It Straight has only aired three episodes, but those who were watching will have to wait for the rest. No specific date has been set yet, but Fox has indicated that they will air the remaining episodes at some later date – probably the summer, and certainly before September, RealityNewsOnline has been told. In this regard, it follows the lead of ABC’s The Mole 2, which underwent a similar fate and then thrived in the summer months.

Will Playing It Straight do as well? It seems unlikely given the show’s split personality – is it a dating show with a twist or a search for a million dollars that just happens to have dating involved? – but we’ll find that out when it actually airs. The choice of which night it will air later will also play a role in determining how it does.

In the meantime, Friday night reality viewers will still have something to watch, as Fox moved Forever Eden to a timeslot later that night. However, Forever Eden has failed to catch on during the timeslots when its intended viewers are actually at home and watching TV, so it seems unlikely to do well on Friday nights, when the younger demographic is less apt to be around. Friday night may just be Forever Eden’s final stop before oblivion.

It almost seems as though Fox believes Playing It Straight still has potential, and they wanted to save that potential rather than continue to waste it on a Friday night. But at the same time, why waste a good time slot on Forever Eden? Well, okay, it wasn’t a good time slot – up against The Apprentice and CSI, but at least now Fox can try to compete there.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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