NBC Gives Up Its Chase

Been meaning to get to this all day; alas, it got buried in the snow, along with everything else. But: Shoulda seen this coming. NBC has yanked the locally shot Chase from its schedule, beginning immediately. Says here it'll be replaced with Minute to Win It, a reality blah-blah-blah that grabbed far more eyeballs than the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced procedural -- which, you may recall, had its episode order cut from 22 to 18 back in December, when it was also announced it would have to compete against American Idol. No doubt that was NBC's attempt to: a) burn off episodes and b) provide a convenient excuse for killing the show sooner than later.

There remains a handful of unaired episodes, and Janis Burklund, head of the Dallas Film Commission, says this evening that today was scheduled to be Chase's final day of shooting -- but, alas, weather got in the way. Which means they'll have to carry on just a little longer knowing that the end has already come and gone.

So now we await word about Dallas and Good Christian Bitches , which we covered earlier this week. Burklund's said all she can on both subjects, so to ABC we turn for more answers regarding Sex and the City creator Darren Star's adaptation of Kim Gatlin's book set in the Park Cities. Erin Felentzer, the ABC publicist handling the network's drama schedule, confirms: "It is only been ordered for presentation pilot," though how long that'll run she can't say. "It differs from show to show." I also asked her if she knew where they'd shoot -- like, here, maybe? "No answer for the Dallas question," she says, with a promise to get back to us sooner than later with further info. (And so she did at 6:15 p.m.: "It's definitely still a presentation pilot. Still waiting to hear about filming in Dallas.")