After latest ratings report, NBC to finally cancel 'Undercover Ross'

Hollywood, CA--In 2009, NBC became very nervous when CBS unveiled a reality show that placed corporate executives undercover as "regular"employees within their own company. The peacock network knew they had to come up with a high quality product to lure viewers away from the hit CBS show Undercover Boss, which is crammed full of laughs, tears, empathy, high fives, low fives and awkward hugs. Their answer? Undercover Ross.

The premise? Actor David Schwimmer plays his popular character Ross Gellar from the hugely popular sitcom Friends and, well ... goes undercover. It appears NBC is still trying to squeeze all it can from the show about post-college 20-somethings living in New York that ran from 1994 to 2004.

When Undercover Ross debuted at the end of September this year, there was such promise for the show that was to run opposite Undercover Boss. Network executives salivated over what they thought could eventually be part of the Thursday-night lineup--its Must See TV. The network, however, seeing the latest Cooper-Sinclair television ratings released on Monday, officially canceled the show on Friday. What went so radically wrong?

"The problem with Undercover Ross, was that everyone knows David or Ross, whatever you want to call him," said TV critic Dennis Valmer, who just celebrated his fifteenth year with TV Guide. "So, it was really hard for him to go undercover. And he had absolutely no affiliation with the companies he claimed to be working for. He couldn't say that he was really somebody's boss. It just didn't make a lot of sense."

Schwimmer, despite severe allergies to most prosthetic facial hair adhesives, sports a fake mustache or beard and pretends to be a new employee at a well-known large company. At the conclusion of every episode the star of the 1996 film Pallbearer (a hit in Manitoba, Canada) was to reveal himself by saying: "Hey, guys. My name isn't really Adam. And I'm actually not a coworker of yours, I'm Ross from Friends."

The unanticipated glitch in Undercover Ross was that in most episodes Schwimmer is almost always quickly identified by the unfooled employees before the end of the show. In fact, he is frequently called out within the first ten minutes. This forced NBC to air the first five shows all in the same hour-long premier.

"We actually approached David with the idea," said NBC executive Janice Levinson, attempting to correct reports that it was the other way around. "He was on board right away, but wanted to tweak the premise a bit. He wanted to call it Undercover Sauce and have it be a sort of cooking show that served terrible spaghetti sauce to unsuspecting restaurant customers. After careful consideration, we said no."

"Things have been a little slow recently and I thought this would be a great opportunity," said Schwimmer, who was preparing for a golf outing with the cast of Friends. "I think if I wore a wig or one of those giant fat suits and some major makeup ... things could have ended differently. I just didn't want to do any of that stuff."

In case you were curious, the final episode of Undercover Ross will air this Sunday at 3 a.m. NBC warns not to wear the 3-D glasses they handed out for the event as they are faulty.