Oh My God, They Killed Jerri! You Bastards!

The BBQ Pit
1

Anyone remember Rob McKenna the Rain God (no relation) in one of the Hitchhiker’s books? He was an ordinary-looking person whom rainclouds simply adored. They followed him around constantly and he was miserable until he realized people would pay him to stay away from their beach, picnic, sporting event, etc.

Well, I think I am a Goddess too. If there’s a television show that you absolutely hate, that you can’t stand the sight or sound or ads of, that you think should be banned by the Geneva Convention, hire me to become a fan of it. It’ll be off the air within a month.

Sitcom or drama, critically acclaimed or derided, big-name stars or moonlighting Off-Off-Broadway actors, it doesn’t matter what kind of show it is, only that I like it. It’s happened again just tonight. :eek: :frowning:

I think my divinity first manifested itself when the snarky show my friends and I all gathered to watch in college, IT’S YOUR MOVE, was put up against DYNASTY and died in 1985. Poor old MARRIED WITH CHILDREN got thrown out with the trash in 1997 without even a farewell episode, even though it had made Fox a household name. Then there were those delightful days in April of '99 when I heard on the first about the death of my favorite comedy, NEWSRADIO, followed the very next day by the termination of my favorite drama HOMICIDE. Of course, all four of these shows had shot their last episodes of the season before their cancellations were announced, so we were left with namby-pamby non-series-ending shows for the last hurrah. No Seinfeld-esque countdown coverage for these folks.

The end of 1999 saw the life and death of ACTION, a show so viciously clever that I almost forgave Fox for putting MWC to sleep–until they put it up against FRASIER and it died after five episodes. I hope all their next bosses are Peter Dragon clones.

2000 comes along and so does FREAKS & GEEKS, set in a high school in 1980. I happen to be the exact same age as the heroine, Lindsay, and this show was so real and so well-written it wasn’t a drama, it was a documentary! They cleverly put it on Saturday nights, when their core audience of young people was out being young people, and it tanked; a last-minute move to Monday killed it.

So, I’ve got FreeAgent open just now and I’m skimming along, pressing IGNORE for all the goddamn BIG BROTHER posts, when another anguished fan posts this:

"Comedy Central wrote to me and said they have no plans to renew the show. Here’s the letter:

We’re glad you’re a fan of STRANGERS WITH CANDY.

Though the series has not been picked up for a new season, Comedy Central will continue to air the remaining episodes as well as previous episodes in the show’s current time slots: Mondays at 10pm/9c and Fridays at 12:30pm/11:30c.

Please make sure to tune in for new episodes for the remainder of September, and don’t miss the series finale on October 2."

:mad: :mad:

Now, I’m not here to debate my taste in TV shows. And I know it’s “just TV” and I do have a life, thanks. But isn’t it annoying when all these damn shows just up and die on you? Of course, they’re usually jerked around a bit beforehand. HOMICIDE was pre-empted so often they’d have three-five week gaps some seasons. FREAKS & GEEKS disappeared for two months and came back with less fanfare than a Senate hearing on pork belly price controls. MWC itself was the only first-run sitcom I’ve ever seen that, when the football game ran over on Fox, was cut into in progress rather than being time-shifted (hadda get THE X-FILES starting right at nine on Sundays, in MWC’S old and rightful place). NEWSRADIO changed timeslots so often that one of their few ads parodied it, showing the cast running frantically back and forth on a huge calendar (although of course Phil Hartman’s murder didn’t help either).

And now the rabid-goat-felching cretins at Comedy Central have decided that they simply MUST have more time to re-run “Meatballs” and THE MAN SHOW, and STRANGERS will soon be history. First Al Bundy, then Peter Dragon, and now Jerri Blank–where am I supposed to get my role models from now, hah?

After October 2nd, there’ll be only two non-news shows that I remotely care about left on the air: LAW & ORDER and SOUTH PARK. And, of course, they’re on opposite each other. Shit.

And yet FRIENDS marches on and on and on. It’s a sick and twisted world.

Carolyn

2

I’ve always thought I was a television-show killer. So when this odd little science-fiction show debuted on Fox about eight years ago, I avoided it because I was not in the mood at the time to start worshipping a show only to kill it.

Then “The X-Files” took off. I began watching it, safe in the knowledge that it had so much momentum and buzz around it that not even I could destroy it.

The only “Strangers With Candy” episode I’ve seen was the steroid episode. Weird stuff, but intriguing.

3

And I thought I was the one who killed “Larroquette” (though the second season sucked, after the ride wasn’t so dark). Don’t get to attached to “Becker,” though. I love that show.

4

WOOHOOOOOOO!!! ::happy dance::
You’re serious??? They’re killing Strangers With Candy??? The stupidest, most irritating show ever made??? YES! YES! YES!!! I wonder what they’ll put in its place? It can’t help but be funny, relatively speaking. A half-hour of home shopping channel would be more entertaining.

Oh thank you for bringing this sweet news! I told my husband and he literally jumped for joy and cried “YES!” and immediately started speculating what they’d put in its time slot.

5

How much would you charge to become a fan of ‘Survivor’?

6

You did that? YOU BIIIIIITCH! That show is NOT canceled it’s just on a very, very long hiatus. FrankandTim,FrankandTim wherefore art thou?
At least I can watch Kyle Secor on City of Angels this fall.

7

And Andre Braugher is on “Gideon’s Crossing,” which was created by Paul Attansio, who helped create “Homicide.”

Damn, McKenna! Although, I think I can apply for co-goddessship. My qualifications? I’ve cancelled Due South, Sentinel, Magnificent Seven (twice!), Homicide, Action, Cupid, Sports Night, and the X-Files started to suck after I started watching.

Thank you. I love West Wing and Law & Order now…hopefully THEY won’t get canned.

8

I’m going to miss you Jerri. I’ve found most of Comedy Central’s original programming (except for the Daily Show) to be unwatchable. OK, “girls on trampolines” is watchable but that’s about the best thing you can say about it.

Maybe with some retooling it’ll get picked up by Lifetime…

9

Well, I should have known STRANGERS was way too quirky to survive. Why can’t I be the Goddess of Acquiring Bars of Gold or Having Thin Thighs or Finding the Perfect Career instead of Destroyer of TV Shows? Oh well.

Snooooopy, I’m hoping that LAW & ORDER is strong enough to that my watching it doesn’t kill it. I still resent THE X-FILES for taking MWC’s great timeslot, though!

Stofsky, don’t worry. Never heard of BECKER.

OpalCat, you and your husband are obviously oblivious to the masterpiece of subtlety and understatement that is STRANGERS. ( :stuck_out_tongue: with rude and crude Jerri gestures here)

Spooje, you want me to start watching SURVIVOR??! That’ll cost you. The bidding starts at five grand per show.

Falcon, CUPID is one of the shows that I’m really sorry I missed. I finally caught on that I should be watching it and whenever I looked, there seemed to be something else in its timeslot. Arrrgh. And I forgot that I also cursed SPORTS NIGHT!!

So sorry about HOMICIDE, Lnix. Yes, I killed it, but I swear, it was an accident, I was just showing it the gun and it went off…Michael Michelle and Jon Seda were deliberate acts of sabotage, however. Which points to another thing–a lot of my faves, as they start to falter, are tampered with, dumbed down, “visited” by people such as Danny Bonaduce or Gary Coleman, or as in HOMICIDE’s case, stuffed with new pretty-faced cast members who the audience, as Tom Fontana actually said, “wants to fuck.” Well, isn’t that special. Whatever you do, don’t give it more ad time or have the stars on ET or not pre-empt it every other week. Sheesh.

Carolyn

10

I think that was my doing…although I more or less agree on season 2. WTF happened? (OK, I know what happened, but still…) It was still funny, but didn’t come CLOSE to the first season.

11

My SO and I managed to kill Cybil, but then, we were the only ones watching it. We also killed American Gothic and Earthworm Jim and very nearly kakked Freakazoid.

But Carolyn, you weren’t alone in the death of Freaks and Geeks, not by a long shot.

12

Freaks and Geeks was the best fucking show EVER … and I say that without any hesitation. They’re showing the reruns on Fox Family and I have most of them on tape. Damn that show ruled! The kids on the show weren’t all blond and pretty and they didn’t all come up with a cheesy one-liner every three seconds. It was just so REAL! FUCK YOU, NBC!

13

McKenna: Don’t start watching it, even though it’s Ted Danson as a very cynical and misanthropist character. I find myself agreeing with him more often than I’m comfortable with.

Tengu: But wasn’t it great when he was living in the one-room cold-water flat, bathroom down the hall, crushing coffee beans inside a handkerchief with a shoe heel? When the burger guy got his 1st ed. of “Gravity’s Rainbow” autographed? Before he started dating the hooker and the other chick?

Best “Larroquette” moment–when he got the pot brownies at the AA meeting.

14

McKenna, I almost think it’s better that they die a fast (and relatively painless) death, rather than go on and on, and deteriorate right before our eyes, like some of the shows I liked.

Your way, they go out in full glory, with some of the best lines still frresh in your mind, and that’s the way you remember them. I know some of the runs were painfully short, but better than seeing them become some thing ugly and gasp unoriginal!

Sili

15

The first season of Laroquette was far too dark and literary for the masses. I mean how many people could possibly grasp the symbolism of a bus station in St. Louis?

I remember when his friend was trying to raise enough money to get a sex-change operation:

“You know, vaginas are very expensive”
“Pssht… tell me about it”

16

I feel your pain. They CANCELLED Voyager (which I don’t like overmuch, but which provides my needed Trek fix every week), and then they moved it to Fridays at midnight (!!), opposite South Park.

And of course, my roommate’s VCR can’t tape a different channel than the one you’re tuned to. Arrrgh! It’s their last season, dammit!

This is as bad as the time one channel cancelled DS9 (which aired right before Voy) and put it opposite Voy.

What’s wrong with these people? Yes, channel-surfing vegetables will watch anything on the tube, but people will tune in on purpose to intelligent or cult shows! Hello!

17

Oh, hells, yeah. It was amazing that first season. Much, MUCH too good to survive intact.

I wish I had the foresight to tape it, since I have a major wish to watch it now…::Sigh::

Heheheh, oh, yeah.

::Sigh::

Well, as they say ‘Only the Good Die Young.’

18

I loved Cybil! I thought I’d killed it.

I know for sure that I also killed Prey, Brimstone, and Cupid. And that vengeance show with Michael Madsen.

19

I killed Northern Exposure. . . er wait a minute. . . no I didn’t. Rob I’m-gonna-quit-the-role-of-Dr.-Joel-and-get-famous-in-the-movies-but-really-disappear-off-the-face-of-the-earth is the real killer.

However, I know I killed Get a Life and Melrose Place.

20

I think I killed American Gothic, my favorite show of all time. I made the mistake of writing to the address provided by TV Guide when they run their yearly “Save This Show” feature. I wrote several times, and I am sure that I singlehandedly convinced them that since all AG fans were raving lunatics, they had best can the show.

Anyone have all the episodes on tape?

MR