'Prison Break' and 'Vanished' kick things off in August
June 21 2006

Wentworth Miller of 'Prison Break'From "Prison Break" to "House," many of your favorite FOX shows will return in August and early September, weeks before the other networks premiere their fresh episodes.

On Wednesday (June 21), FOX announced its slate of fall premiere dates. It's a schedule which, as expected, kicks off in the waning days of the summer, well ahead of the official, Nielsen-regulated start to the season.

Beginning on Monday, August 21, FOX will bring "Prison Break" back for its second season. On the same day, the network will introduce viewers to another heavily serialized drama, "Vanished." By the time September 16 rolls around, FOX will have launched seven new primetime and late-night shows.

FOX's early premature evacuation of offerings follows a pattern based around the network's yearly coverage of playoff baseball, which interrupts programming for most of the month of October, just as new shows on other networks are beginning to gain traction. As a result, FOX has taken to staging multiple schedules, one for the fall, built to cushion the havoc wreaked by baseball, and another for January, when "American Idol" triumphantly puts the network on its broad shoulders.

That's why fans looking for "King of the Hill" (delayed until the winter after NFL games stop making a mockery of the Sunday 7 p.m. ET hour) or "The Loop" won't find an August or September premiere date for those shows.

FOX has also scheduled slightly belated premieres for "Trading Spouses" (Friday Oct. 6) and "The O.C." (Thursday, Nov. 2), which will wait for "Duets" to finish its season.

Here is the complete list of FOX's August and September premieres (all times are ET):

Monday, August 21
8:00 p.m. "Prison Break" (Season Premiere)
9:00 p.m. "Vanished" (Series Premiere)

Wednesday, August 30
8:00 p.m. "Bones" (Season Premiere)
9:00 p.m. "Justice" (Series Premiere)

Thursday, August 31
8:00 p.m. "Duets" (2-Hour Series Premiere)

Tuesday, September 5
8:00 p.m. "Standoff" (Series Premiere)
9:00 p.m. "House" (Season Premiere)

Thursday, September 7
8:00 p.m. "Til Death" (Series Premiere)
8:30 p.m. "Happy Hour" (Series Premiere)
9:00 p.m. "Duets" (Time Period Premiere)

Friday, September 8
8:00 p.m. "Nanny 911"(Season Premiere)
9:00 p.m. "Duets Results Show" (Series Premiere)

Saturday, September 9
8:00 p.m. "COPS" (Season Premiere)
8:30 p.m. "COPS" (Season Premiere)
9:00 p.m. "America's Most Wanted" (Season Premiere)

Sunday, September 10
8:00 p.m. "The Simpsons" (Season Premiere)
8:30 p.m. "American Dad" (Season Premiere)
9:00 p.m. "Family Guy" (Season Premiere)
9:30 p.m. "The War at Home" (Season Premiere"

Saturday, September 16
11:00 p.m."MADtv" (Season Premiere)
Midnight "Talk Show With Spike Ferensten" (Series Premiere)

Sunday, September 10
8:00 p.m. "The Simpsons" (Season Premiere)
8:30 p.m. "American Dad" (Season Premiere)
9:00 p.m. "Family Guy" (Season Premiere)
9:30 p.m. "The War at Home" (Season Premiere"

Inside Move: Fox cuts back on 'OC'
Net requests only 16 new episodes of soap

By JOSEF ADALIAN

Fox will be spending a little less time in "The OC" next season.

Turns out that when the net renewed the Josh Schwartz-created sudser in May, it also decided to cut back its episodic commitment to the show. Fox has asked producer Warner Bros. TV for only 16 episodes -- a substantial reduction from the 22 that's standard for most returning skeins.

A Fox spokesman attributed the cutback to the net's scheduling needs. "The OC" won't have its season premiere until Nov. 2 -- about a month after most Fox shows -- and therefore, the reasoning goes, net won't need as many episodes in the can.

Nonetheless, even with the late start, Fox will be out of original "OC" episodes by the end of February. Net could be hoping to use the skein's 9 p.m. Thursday slot to launch a show (or shows) in the spring, when "CSI" and "Grey's Anatomy" likely will serve up a hefty dose of repeats.

"The OC" faces a tough task in the ratings, now that "Grey's" is moving into the timeslot. Fox execs, however, believe the show's core audience of young females will remain loyal.