Cancelled shows and shows in danger

[TomXP411]

You know what ticks me off? There's plenty of room on TV for shows like Reaper, Sarah Connor, Dollhouse, Eli Stone, and all the other shows with relatively small audiences. But the TV networks would rather throw away good material to try to get a couple of extra share points (and maybe get worse ratings in the process.)

Every network wants the next American Idol or Dancing With the Stars, when there are so many other potential markets.

I hate the way the TV market works. It almost guarantees that anything novel will get buried. Any cable channel would KILL for those numbers, and yet because it's on broadcast TV, it's not good enough.

I'm so tired of the numbers game. this season has been one tragedy after another - good shows getting cancelled because of numbers... when will the execs see that not every program can be #1?

[mayhem70]

Originally Posted by TomXP411

You know what ticks me off? There's plenty of room on TV for shows like Reaper, Sarah Connor, Dollhouse, Eli Stone, and all the other shows with relatively small audiences. But the TV networks would rather throw away good material to try to get a couple of extra share points (and maybe get worse ratings in the process.)

Every network wants the next American Idol or Dancing With the Stars, when there are so many other potential markets.

I hate the way the TV market works. It almost guarantees that anything novel will get buried. Any cable channel would KILL for those numbers, and yet because it's on broadcast TV, it's not good enough.

I'm so tired of the numbers game. this season has been one tragedy after another - good shows getting cancelled because of numbers... when will the execs see that not every program can be #1?

I guess what I don't get is why doesn't the show producers try to shop the shows on other networks? Stargate SG-1 made the jump from Showtime to Scifi when Showtime pulled the plug on them. And when tv execs were desperate, they had USA's Monk on ABC.

[ZetaVu]

For a while a few years ago, all the shows I was watching were on FX, USA, Scifi, HBO, etc. I watched maybe a couple shows on Fox and maybe one on the other networks. Then, the networks seemed to get their act together and now my cue has 40 network shows and 30 cable (well, satellite) shows set over the year. Sadly I see this trend reversing again, which is fine as long as they take the good shows being canceled and move them to cable. Sadly they don't, so the best we can hope for is new content that is that good on cable. Maybe the threat needs to be online content, yet another reason to expand BTV to handle online services, not for reruns (although that is nice) but for new content.

[TomXP411]

Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog proved that on-line content can be a success.

Of course, in 10 years, it'll all be on-line anyway.

[mayhem70]

Sanctuary also was web episodes until Scifi picked it up.

[ZetaVu]

And the other show may be dropping - Dollhouse rumored to be cancelled

'Dollhouse' hasn't actually been cancelled on Hitfix The irony is that the rumor started with "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" star Felicia Day tweeted... wasn't that last week's southpark episode?

[TomXP411]

io9 also has coverage of the Felicia Day incident and something regarding Sarah Connor...

io9 - You Won't Get Your Alan Tudyk/Felicia Day Fix On Dollhouse - Dollhouse
io9 - Don't Panic ?*Sarah Connor Chronicles Not Moving To Saturday - terminator

[Rich A]

I must be the odd ball viewer. It seems that every time I get "hooked" on a show, the networks cancel it.

I only wish that if they HAVE to cancel, they at least bring the series to some kind of conclusion. I'm sick of having them just yank the plug out of the wall right in the middle of a plot, sub-plot or storyline.

One thing that has me going hmmmmm, is the validity of something like the Nielsen ratings. With today's abundance of PVRs many people now record two competing shows and watch them BOTH. Although I don't know much about how Nielsen works, I would imagine they track what shows the people are watching live and not recording ?? Still if you poll say 10,000 people and find out that 7,500 watched channel A and only 2,500 watched channel B, how accurate can that be when the remaining millions of viewers are watching both?

Dunno if I'm making sense here (as usual)

[Nick Burns]

Prison Break's final two hours might not air on FOX

As if we haven't heard enough bad news about this show. Turns out that the final two hours of everyone's favorite guilty pleasure, Prison Break, might not even air on FOX. The over-the-top drama, which was recently canceled, returns this Friday ("The Mother Lode", 9PM ET on FOX) to air the first of its final six episodes. All of those episodes will air on FOX.

Confused? Keep reading.

As many have heard, Prison Break EP Matt Olmstead and his creative team went above and beyond what was required of them. After the series finale (scheduled to air on May 15th), Olmstead's crew made a finaler(?) series finale, in the form of a standalone two hour telepic that may or may not be related to that woman's prison spin-off that's long been rumored (which isn't happening ... yet).

TV Guide's Matt Mitovich is now reporting that FOX "neither ordered nor scheduled" the telepic (a.k.a. episodes S04E23 and S04E24). In fact, he says, it's gonna be a straight to DVD release. TVShowsOnDVD.com seems to support this claim saying that the tentatively titled Prison Break: The Final Break will be released on July 21st. Hopefully FOX goes ahead and schedules it anyway.

So what does everyone think about this news? Personally, I'm a fan of this show, but here's how I see it - you don't watch Prison Break, you put up with Prison Break. Based on that reasoning alone, I say FOX owes us one. Besides, what could they possibly air instead?

Now, as I understand it, this was supposed to be Prison Break's final season anyway, which I'm fine with. Why not just air that 2Hr episode anyhow? Why make us go through hoops to watch it, if the even release it?

FOX just doesn't know how to keep good shows on the air. It's a shame really.

I think Life On Mars was done right, a whole show fully wrapped up in one season. If networks did that kind of thing with a good story, I think it would work very well.

FOX had a show on a couple of years ago that was supposed to only be one season: Reunion. Each episode would go back to a certain year (up to 20 years) to explain the character relationships. It lasted about 11 episodes before being canceled. Sad really.

[Xiadix]

Originally Posted by Rich A

One thing that has me going hmmmmm, is the validity of something like the Nielsen ratings. With today's abundance of PVRs many people now record two competing shows and watch them BOTH. Although I don't know much about how Nielsen works, I would imagine they track what shows the people are watching live and not recording ?? Still if you poll say 10,000 people and find out that 7,500 watched channel A and only 2,500 watched channel B, how accurate can that be when the remaining millions of viewers are watching both?

Dunno if I'm making sense here (as usual)

You make perfect sense. I know that Nielsen does allow their testers to use DVRs so that is not a problem in their system.

FYI, before my PM box get filled, I am not a Nielsen family so I will not record your shows for you.


KevG

[ZetaVu]

Well, I've about had it with Prison Break, I'll watch it through to the end since I've watched it up to here, but it really should have ended a year or so ago. Now they're probably rushing the ending like they were forced to with other shows they canceled.

Life on Mars, had an ending, one they could probably insert next year if it got picked up again. Pushing Daisies, they have an ending episode they had to rewrite. Most series get canceled off season, even though there are rumors Sarah Conner and Dollhouse are canceled they won't be official until mid-May.

I like how things are shaping up with Chuck, it has two more episodes left, and if NBC passes on them the WB is lining up to take over. I think any show that can have relatively good ratings should always have the option to move to another channel or to cable as long as the ratings can keep up with the cost. I'm pretty confident shows like Terminator, Dollhouse, Chuck, even Heroes could survive on cable or a network not obsessed with top ratings. Battlestar was proof of that, and they had a pretty steep cgi budget but lower ratings than Fox's Friday deathslot.

At least it looks like Fringe is getting picked up for another season, although that may have been a requirement for the Star Trek sequel.

[Nick Burns]

Originally Posted by Xiadix

You make perfect sense. I know that Nielsen does allow their testers to use DVRs so that is not a problem in their system.

FYI, before my PM box get filled, I am not a Nielsen family so I will not record your shows for you.


KevG

I've stated before that we were a Nielsen Family...way long before we had the DVR, we had 3 VCRs going - boy did they have fun with that. I swear they were out every other week tweaking their system to get the right data. So they knew what channel was being recorded when and what was being watched. So at any time, they were getting results from at least 4 different channels from us. They also knew when we were watching a tape, but not what that tape was - whether it was a pre-recorded show or a rental movie.

[Zogg]

I sure hope it's true that Chuck will get picked up by another network! I'd love to see Terminator:TSCC come back but some of the episodes were so loopy trying to stretch out minor plot points that it's no wonder they lost viewers.

Speaking of Nielsen, they have been calling my house multiple times per week for about a month. I wasn't interested in doing it so we never answered, and finally they actually left a message saying they had tried to call us and might again in the future. They must have called at least 10-12 times over about 3 weeks. I guess I can't complain too much if my favorite shows go off since I wasn't willing to have them log our viewership, but their telemarketer behavior kind of ticked me off.

[Jakesty]

Most recent rumors on the shows on the bubble, renewed and gone.

The early line on fall: What's in, out and undecided - USATODAY.com

[ZetaVu]

Well, my comments on the list

As good as dead - knew about most of the ABC shows, too bad about 11th hour CBS but not surprised, good riddance worst week. NBC knw about most, glad about knight rider (sorry fans) and shocked about Life, I liked that. Fox has Dollhouse and Terminator, knew Prison Break. Sad to see Reaper on the CW list, but not unexpected. Hopefully they have a proper finale.

For the bubble list, CW has Privileged, I'd rather they dump that and keep Reaper. Sit Down, Shut up hasn't even started. NBC can kill Parks and Recreations, I think Earl has jumped the shark. Hopefully Chuck can go on. CBS, I'm surprised Old Christine lasted this long, I like Rules of Engagement but writing this season has been weak (they spend too much time laughing at their own jokes). ABC, Scrubs has gone to hell since switching networks. Not sure about the Unusuals, doubt it will make the cut. I love Better Off Ted, that needs to stay. I really like Castly and Cupid, hope they buy some time.

Only surprise on the renewed list is Big Bang Theory, and I heard Heroes was on the bubble but I guess it is safe.

Overall, Dollhouse is ok but I doubt it will get renewed. I would like to see one last Terminator season. Again proper Reaper finish, then hope they keep Ted, Castle, Rules, Cupid. Didn't see anything about Kings, I assume that will die off, kinda like it but about as much as I got into Crusoe, well actually a bit more