11, 2012, before the 80-episode limited series officially premiered on June 18, 2012. The show initially ran every weeknight at 9 p.m. (EST), but halfway through the series on August 13, 2012, it was moved to Nick at Nite's sister channel TeenNick at 8 p.m. EST. Reception Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times noted that the series was produced by executive and creative personnel "whose combined credits include what seems to be every major network soap opera of the last 50 years as well as 21st-century reality soaps such as The Hills and The City." He wrote, "If Heights is not particularly novel—it is, after all, based on a series two decades old—neither does it reek of must and mildew. Nor do the musical performances seem contrived, or rather they seem authentically contrived, staged as they would be staged by a performer like Eddie, who deals in thumping aspirational party anthems." Lloyd added, "what I've seen, if not exactly appointment television for a person of my age and interests, is pretty appealing; by the standards of most other TV shows about teens and pop stars, it is well observed, well informed and (so far) plausible." Joe Caramanica of The New York Times wrote, "Even though the melodrama, highly structured scripting and stilted camera shots are indebted to the telenovela form, Hollywood Heights owes the most to the rat-tat-tat rhythms of Gilmore Girls." Of James Franco's performance Caramanica wrote, "Mr. Franco chews more than his share of scenery, which turns out to be a necessary strategy. In an environment like this, in which all the performances have soft edges, and no one is steering the scenes too aggressively, acting out is the only sort of acting that gets noticed. His frazzled energy isn’t realistic but is instead fantastical and a running commentary on the stiltedness of the rest of the proceedings." Ed Martin of MediaPost.com noted that creatively the series "so far has been a bit on the safe and sterile side, even more than Degrassi and certainly more than the often quite edgy fare on ABC Family." Variety'''s Brian Lowry wrote that though Hollywood Heights was "tailored to [Nickelodeon's] demo with a musical component and teen-tempting leads ... For a show with a pop undercurrent that proclaims itself 'sizzling', Heights'' is pretty tepid and lacks a hit song’s most basic element: A catchy hook." Suggesting that daily episodes were