Lineup changes bode ill

What do you do when nothing on your new fall schedule sticks? You shuffle around your shows… What do you do when nothing on your new fall schedule sticks? You shuffle around your shows and pretend that it was scheduling issues, not a sub-par lineup of poorly conceived shows with recycled plotlines.

In the past, Fox relied on reality and game shows to get the network through the first half of the season until hits like “24” and “American Idol” returned in the spring. This season, Fox decided to take a new approach by having a full schedule of scripted shows in hopes of finding a new hit.

After “Prison Break” and “House” both started pulling in larger audiences, it seemed like the perfect time to use their success to launch new shows. Unfortunately, most of the shows on the new fall schedule featured the same tired formulas that saturate primetime.

With none of the new shows and some of the returning ones not working, Fox decided the best course of action would be to move everything around, so it’s nearly impossible to find the new shows unless you have a screening grid e-mailed to you every day.

“Vanished” was the first new show of the season to premier and was paired with “Prison Break” on Mondays. After consistently losing a large number of viewers from its lead-in, Fox decided to slowly kill the show by moving it to Friday nights. Since no one was watching the show, the network decided to put it out of its misery and run the rest of the episodes on YouTube and OnDemand.

Disaster was in the cards for “Vanished” since the baseball playoffs began airing. Network executives pushed for a cliffhanger to bring back viewers after the playoffs, so the writers killed off the main character.

Since the schedule changes worked out so well for “Vanished,” Fox decided to do the same thing to “Justice.”

“Justice” started on Wednesday nights and drew respectable — although not stellar — numbers. When “Vanished” moved to Fridays, “Justice” moved to the open Monday timeslot with the hopes of building a bigger audience.

It just didn’t pan out: “Justice” drew nearly identical numbers on Monday nights. Now, with “Vanished” moving online, “Justice” will finish its run on Friday nights starting in December.

With “Justice” no longer on Mondays or Wednesdays, this gives Fox the opportunity to air reruns of “House” on Mondays, and then viewers are treated to a two-hour time block of “Bones” on Wednesdays.

Things aren’t going much better for “Standoff,” the confused show featuring awkward humor and overdramatic hostage situations; the show actually lost viewers when it moved to the less-competitive 8 p.m. Tuesday timeslot, just barely beating a rerun of NBC’s ratings-challenged “Friday Night Lights.”

Thursday is the big night of television — well, for everyone except Fox. The network’s quickly learning that the tan, rich kids of “The OC” are no match for the pasty interns of “Grey’s Anatomy.”

“The OC” lost a significant portion of its viewers from last season, and even a temporary move to Wednesday nights where it battled the castaways from “Lost” didn’t improve viewership.

“The OC” isn’t the only show struggling on Thursday nights. “Til Death” and “Happy Hour,” two incredibly bad sitcoms, also can’t dig up viewers on television’s most competitive night.

“Happy Hour” drew the short stick, and Fox has cancelled the show, which means that viewers get a double dose of “Til Death.” While this may delight all eight fans of “Til Death,” it also means yet another half hour of reruns.

The only night that isn’t struggling is Sunday, and that’s mostly because it remains unchanged from last season. Despite questionable quality, “American Dad” continues to be successful because it’s scheduled between “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy.” And surely the only reason “The War at Home” remains on the air is because people are too lazy to turn the channel after “Family Guy.”

Fox does have hope in its future, but not until late January when “24” and “American Idol” return. Viewers can look forward to a two hour season premier of “24” and an endless stream of increasingly pointless “American Idol” recaps showcasing America’s lack of vocal talent.