The strange story of the last season of the Drew Carey show

I liked the Drew Carey show. It was one of the few shows that actually went out of its way to tell jokes, set up humor situations and follow through on them without trying to be "real" while still being funny. It wasn't brilliant, but it did what it wanted to do: Tell jokes in a setting that people knew.

For a while, Drew was ABC's biggest star, and his sit-com was about the only thing not hosted by Regis Philbin that was making a splash, and seeing how other shows were leaving their networks or wanting more money to stay, in the 7th season, ABC signed a two year renewal.

Then, in the 8th season, they shuffled the show all over the schedule, the writing slipped and it dropped in the ratings at an alarming speed. ABC limped it through the 8th year and removed it as soon as they could...leaving them with one more year on the deal. The crew made the new season (the 9th) in a virtual vacuum. ABC didn't check on what they were doing, since they didn't even have the show on the schedule. Warner Brothers (the makers of the show) were damn happy to do another season, since they had already been paid, and the hsow is a big hit in syndication, and another season meant they could charge more...

So, now, ABC is burning off the last season in the summer, two episodes at a time, with very little fanfare. Carey himself said that if ABCwanted to, they could show two episodes at once (one on each side of the screen) if that meant they could finish it off faster. He has a deal for a "Whose Line Is It Anyway" style show on the WB, and ABC has a bajillion different plastic surgery shows, so both sides will be happy when it's all done.