The Time Magazine TV blog is calling it Jaypocalpyse Now

I am definitely not a journalist and this is really not a TV news blog, but it’s hard to ignore the craziness that’s swirling around right now. There were rumors flying around the internet willy-nilly yesterday, and twitter lit up like a Christmas tree, and the result of it all seems to be that NBC is admitting defeat on the Jay Leno Show experiment. Although the exact nature of the new schedule is either still undecided or unconfirmed, the majority opinion is that Leno will move back to 11:35, do a half-hour show, and then Conan will start at 12:05.

The problems have been building for a while now, with complaints most notably coming from local NBC network affiliates. Local news programs have had seriously anemic ratings with Leno as an 11 o’clock lead in (as opposed to such stirring 10pm programming as Law and Order and CSI reruns), and have been bemoaning the lost eyeballs. Add to this the NBC-Comcast deal and NBC’s weakness in almost every other timeslot, and it’s not hard to see the pressure building to make some changes.

Sitting on my couch yesterday and flipping back and forth between my computer and Vanity Fair, it’s hard to know what the final straw was. Still, a few blogs posted stories about how NBC has ordered a whopping 18 pilot episodes for next season, and wondered when they could possibly be planning to schedule those new shows with Jay Leno clogging up every 10pm weeknight. All of a sudden everyone was wondering about Leno and NBC. Jay actually did a few jokes about it last night, including the somewhat lame line that he’ll now have time to do some travelling and that he hears Fox is nice this time of year.

I feel some schadenfreude toward NBC. Cost and changing landscape and personality battles aside, from a purely good vs. bad television standpoint, The Jay Leno Show at 10pm was creatively empty TV pabulum. Not that my opinion has much do to with anything, but I’ll admit to some small feelings of pleasure that a network that chooses to replace Southland with a daily reading of stupid newspaper headlines is now in trouble. So little bad TV is punished; at least this decision seems to be headed toward the crash and burn it deserves.

At the same time, it’s easy to see that Conan O’Brien has been seriously shafted, and it looks like nothing good for him can come out of this network implosion. He’s got more as a comic than just floppy hair and oddly long limbs, and NBC and Leno seem to be doing their best to keep that secret under wraps. I also can’t help but hope NBC manages to keep its head up somehow. Whatever other disasters they’re currently airing, they are also the home to shows like Chuck, so somebody over there has got to have his or her head on straight. (Have I mentioned yet that Chuck is coming back on Sunday night? Because it is. And I am psyched. Do people still say that, “psyched”? Anyway.) So please deal with this terrible Jay Leno show idea, NBC, and then get back on the horse. Just don’t do it again.