'Nanny' takes early retirement

The WB seems determined to become more like Fox these days. And, what with the cancellation of "Commando Nanny" before the show ever got on the air, it's on that road.

Fox has a long, weird history of announcing shows that never air. The WB, at least, has a better excuse for giving up on "Commando Nanny," a show it trumpeted to advertisers, critics and audiences back in May as its great sitcom hope this fall.

It wasn't just because the show was terrible, although it was certainly that. At least the original pilot episode shown to critics was really, really bad.

The concept was iffy enough — a young, macho guy who just got out of the British special services after a stint in Afghanistan moves to Los Angeles, where he gets a job as a nanny. Yeah, I know that it's loosely based on the life of "Survivor" and "Apprentice" producer Mark Burnett, but sometimes truth is too stupid to buy into.

Which was certainly the case with "Commando Nanny" — the pilot looked sort of like a low-budget "Full House" with even less believability and not much of anything in the way of laughs.

Not that being bad necessarily means you won't succeed on network TV. But "Commando Nanny" was beset with more than its share of problems.

First, Kristin Bauer (who played the wife and mother whose children the nanny cared for) was dropped from the cast after the pilot was shot and replaced by Kristin Dattilo. Which wasn't that big a deal (except to Bauer, of course), because recasting is done all the time on new TV series.

Then the guy cast as the nanny, Philip Winchester, broke his foot and was replaced by Owain Yeoman. (Winchester, oddly enough, is from Montana and was affecting an English accent. Yeoman is actually British.)

Then Gerald McRaney, who played the nanny's rich, irascible employer, was operated on to remove a cancerous growth from his lung. He wasn't replaced (cancer apparently being less severe than a broken foot), but production on "Commando Nanny" was shut down so McRaney could recover.

Finally, show-running executive producer Rachel Sweet ("Dharma & Greg," "Sports Night," "George Lopez") quit the show earlier this month, apparently after having differences with Burnett and Warner Bros., which was producing the show for the WB. Her departure shut down production again .

Ah, well. At least Burnett — whose ego has grown faster than the success of his reality shows — won't have to read all the lousy reviews "Commando Nanny" would have received if it had made it on the air. (Did I mention how bad that pilot was?)

For now, the WB will continue to air repeats of "Reba" on Fridays at 8:30 p.m., after original episodes of "Reba."