This image was lost some time after publication.

The NY Times delves into NBC's unprecedented rejiggering of their fall schedule, which began with a scuttling of Aaron Sorkin's drama-about-a-comedy Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip away from the Thursday night competition, and, like a bored, jittery housewife on a furniture-rearranging rampage, led to drastic tinkering with the rest of the schedule :

"It's unusual for us," Mr. Reilly said of the wholesale changes in the prime-time lineup. "We go first, and we are fourth. Unusual circumstances lead to these kinds of measures." Such sweeping changes in a network's schedule so soon after it had been announced have happened rarely, if ever. [...]

The advantage of shifting so many shows after the advertiser presentations known as the upfronts was the opportunity to find some weaker spots in the schedules of CBS, ABC and Fox, Mr. Reilly said. "I've been watching a lot of pilots," he said, adding that he had seen all the new shows on the other networks and that that experience had made him feel "more confident in our own product."

We can't blame Reilly for making some sort of gesture towards the restoration of his hardihood following what had to be the crushing blow to that department after yesterday's concessionary announcement. Still, we wish the network heads could get past their juvenile tournaments of anatomical one-upmanship (yes, Reilly, we know what it is you're actually referring to when you discuss the caliber of the other guys' "pilots" versus your own "product"), and get on with the business of making good TV.