Lights Out for Playboy Club

(Newser) – Who do you find sexier: Playboy bunnies or Brian Williams? If you went with the former you're out of luck, because NBC's 10pm EDT Monday time slot is about to be filled by the latter. The Playboy Club has officially become the first cancellation of the fall season. A slim three episodes aired, the last of which drew a paltry 3.5 million viewers. Rock Center will air in its place, and no, that's not a show about rock-hard bodies. The Williams-helmed newsmagazine will debut on Halloween night, and will feature Harry Smith and Kate Snow as correspondents, along with Meredith Vieira, Matt Lauer, and Ann Curry. Prime Suspect reruns will air in the meantime, notes the AP.

Some tidbits surrounding the demise:

• Bill Zwecker of the Chicago Sun-Times basically predicted it yesterday, calling out the disconnect between what viewers expected the show to be and what it actually was: "a female-oriented nighttime soap opera."
• So much for confidence: AP reports that Williams has been working on his show in anticipation of it launching, as NBC reportedly promised him he'd get a slot when one of its new shows failed.
• Oh, ouch! Our favorite quip comes courtesy of James Poniewozik of Time: "In the end, the cancellation was a tribute to the power of voting with one's remote and not watching poorly-written scripts and Eddie Cibrian's impression of Jon Hamm as rendered by a wax museum."