She’s pretty great at her old job, too. Paris and Nicole are back with “The Simple Life 2,” and naturally they’re drawing a crowd. “Simple Life 2” is the centerpiece of the most ambitious summer schedule ever attempted by a network. After years of paying lip service to the need for original programming 12 months a year, Fox is actually trying it. It will launch six shows this month: two sitcoms, two dramas and two reality shows. Summer has always been dicey for the networks; viewership is usually 20 percent less than in the cocoon-inducing winter. But with cable launching some of its biggest shows each June–“Six Feet Under,” “Nip/Tuck”–the networks can’t just throw out a bunch of reruns and reality shows and expect to compete anymore. Last year, for the first time, the top 60 basic-cable stations drew a larger share of the prime-time audience than the six networks.
Fox is obviously serious about making a change. It has created a summer season that smells very much like a fall schedule, which is to say it’s full of the good, the bad and the derivative (see box). On the good side, “Simple Life 2” is just as hilarious as the original. This season our two spoiled celebutantes hit the trailer-park circuit, traveling cross-country by their wits, such as they are. With reality shows this funny, it’s no wonder scripted sitcoms are dying. Also promising is “Method & Red,” a kind of hip-hop “Beverly Hillbillies” featuring rap stars Method Man and Redman, who move into a gated community with their bling-bling and their hoochies in tow. Fox isn’t taking any chances. The network is also scheduling weekly repeats of each show, in hopes of slowly building an audience for these programs, or shoving them down your throat, depending on how you look at it. It’s a scheme that helped make “The O.C.” a hit last summer. Sure, cable pioneered instant repeats years ago, but if it means two helpings of Paris and Nicole every week, what’s not to like?
