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NBC's schedule hasn't exactly made a whole lot of sense this year, and it's only taken the network until the end of October to realize it. Changes are afoot at the Peacock, and the big winner of the newly reconfigured NBC schedule is the underappreciated Life; the big loser is the underperforming Lipstick Jungle.

According to Media Life, Life will vacate the television equivalent of Siberia known as Friday nights at 10 p.m. and now solve crimes on Wednesday nights beginning November 5. That's great for Life, which stars Damien Lewis as a quirky detective, as middle-of-the-week humpday typically gets many more eyeballs than working-for-the-weekend Friday. NBC has tried to find a spot for Life for a while now, trying the show out on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Life will be the 9:00 p.m. meat in the new crimefighting-themed Wednesday-night sandwich, following Knight Rider and preceding Law & Order, which begins its season earlier than expected.

Lipstick Jungle, on the other hand, takes its sassy attitude and flailing ratings to Life's old slot this Friday at 10 p.m., where it follows the adventurous new show Crusoe (boy, does that seems like a mismatch made in hell). With this move, it appears as though NBC is dropping a big can of napalm on Lipstick Jungle.

There could be more moves to be made by other networks soon as well. Monday nights are a mess, with Monday Night Football eating up audiences for Chuck, Heroes, Prison Break, and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and ABC will definitely try and fix its struggling threesome of Private Practice, Pushing Daisies, and Dirty Sexy Money.
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CBS axes comedy drama 'The Ex-List'

Tuesday, October 28 2008, 09:59 GMT

By Simon Reynolds, Entertainment Reporter