Well, here’s some unsurprising and surprising news. NBC’s new capo Bob Greenblatt has just given full season orders to two of the network’s freshmen sitcoms: Christina Applegate, Will Arnett, and Maya Rudolph’s Up All Night, and Whitney Cummings’s Whitney. Up’s pickup is the unsurprising bit. The show has been doing well for the Peacock (which is not to say it’s a straight-up hit — this is NBC, after all) and has established a comedy beachhead for the network on a new night, Wednesdays. The Whitney news is a bit more head-scratching: If the show hasn’t been a flat-out disaster, it still hasn’t made a very good showing, among critics or viewers. Greenblatt is reportedly trying out patience this season, intent on giving shows a full cycle to find their audience: Whitney seems to be one of the early beneficiaries of this philosophy. With a full season ahead of it, fingers crossed it keeps getting incrementally better. Back to the unsurprising: NBC has also pulled the very poorly rated The Playboy Club off the schedule, with no plans to put it back on another night. Brian Williams’s newsmagazine show, Rock Center, will replace it starting on October 31, and could hardly do worse than Playboy has been. This means Playboy has the distinction of being the season’s first cancellation, and, on the brighter side, Laura Benanti can now get a job that deserves her. UPDATE: Reruns of Prime Suspect — not exactly a ratings smash itself, but certainly a far better show and one that could use some more eyeballs — will replace Playboy Club on Mondays until Rock Center begins at the end of the month.
