What the Hell is Going On?

Today was the busiest day yet in the week leading up to upfronts... and the one that has made the least sense.

ABC

• Renewals: Body of Proof, Castle, Grey's Anatomy, Once Upon a Time, Private Practice, Revenge, Scandal, Don't Trust the B- in Apt 23, Happy Endings, Last Man Standing, The Middle, Modern Family, Suburgatory
• Canceled: GCB, Missing, Pan Am, The River
• New Drama Pickups: 666 Park Avenue, Last Resort, Nashville, Red Widow (FKA Penoza), Zero Hour
• New Comedy Pickups: The Family Tools (FKA Red Van Man), How to Live with Your Parents for the Rest of Your Life, Malibu Country, The Neighbors (FKA Down to Earth)

I just... wanna vomit on ABC right now. How the hell did Body of Proof eke out a renewal over better-rated freshman GCB? How did The Neighbors, a sitcom about aliens living next door, get picked up over the star-studded The Family Trap? Where did Zero Hour come from? There were no early reviews of its script, no buzz surrounding its development and testing... I'm just confused. And even though I predicted it, it still hurts the Scandal got renewed over GCB as well, considering the former had a much stronger lead-in and has now dropped in the past couple weeks to levels even with the latter.

CW

• Renewals: Gossip Girl, Hart of Dixie, Nikita
• Canceled: Ringer, The Secret Circle
• New Drama Pickups: Arrow, Beauty and the Beast, The Carrie Diaries, Cult, First Cut

Dear CW: This is why your network is in the toilet. You renew Hart of Dixie over The Secret Circle and Nikita over Ringer. None have done particularly well in the ratings, so I would love to know the reasoning behind it all. Especially since both Hart of Dixie and Nikita have gotten full 22 episode orders. Gossip Girl should have been axed as well, but I can at least understand ordering 11 episodes to provide a swan song to the show which put your network on the map. But I cannot get behind the Hart of Dixie renewal. Ridiculous. The Secret Circle has consistently out-rated or rated as well as it.

And where is The Selection? I don't care if that pilot was a mess, you re-cast it, re-shoot it, re-cut it, WHATEVER, and you put it on the schedule and capitalize on its similarities with The Hunger Games. Look what the Twilight similarities did for The Vampire Diaries. You're idiots.

NBC

•  Renewals: Community, Parks & Recreation, Up All Night, Whitney
• Canceled: Awake, Harry's Law, Are You There Chelsea?, Bent, Best Friends Forever 
•  New Comedy Pickups: Next Caller

Apparently NBC is aiming to air only sitcoms and reality shows, because I can see no other reason to renew Up All Night and pick up another new comedy. The order for Parks & Rec is a full season, while Community is for only 13. Why not make it 18 and get yourselves to syndication ASAP? Silly. The cancellations were no surprise.

Now NBC has seven new comedies and five returning, and the fate of one (The Office, which should make the tally six returning) still to be determined. Even if they're not all on the air at the same time, that's a ton of comedies to schedule.

Next week's schedule announcements are going to be crazy.