Read This: The plan to save Up All Night almost involved a magical portal only the baby could see
NBC’s continued—and continually ill-advised—attempt to keep Up All Night alive is the sort of showbiz boondoggle that cries out for a Devil’s Candy-style treatment detailing each network-mandated misstep and instance of executive-producer-meddling in excruciating detail. Until some bold journalist steps forth with that project, you can make do by stringing every A.V. Club Newswire piece about the show into some sort of linear narrative—failing that, you could also give a look to this piece by TV Guide’s Michael Schneider. It’s low on the lurid details and high on industry sources speaking anonymously, but it does contain a few delicious nuggets of TV schadenfreude, like the following abandoned attempt to bridge the single-camera version of Up All Night and the multi-camera iteration NBC insists, Ahab-like, is out there, swimming in a sea of big ratings and critical accolades:
“One pitch placed a portal between the two worlds—the single-cam and multi-cam versions—that only baby Amy could see.”
In related news, The Magical Portal Baby Show remains on hiatus for retooling.