So at the beginning of the 2006-07 TV year (and again during the mid-year replacement process) I scanned the field of hopefuls, and decided to invest my time, Tivo, and rapidly-diminishing brain cells on the following;
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
**Vanished ** (senator’s wife abducted, some sort of Da Vinci code cult with Masonic connections…never resolved)
**Standoff ** (Ron Livingston as an FBI hostage negotiator)
That One with Ray Liotta that lasted 2 episodes
and in January…Knights of Prosperity. Which is still hilarious.
I watched every episode of every stupid game show: The Rich List (yanked after 1 episode!), Show Me the Money, 1 vs 100, Identity.
Which left me no time for Ugly Betty, Heroes, or Friday Night Lights.
I got a little bit hooked on The Nine and Day Break, and both of 'em were yanked off the air pronto. I liked Vanished, too, until they killed Gale Harold’s character, which pissed me off so much that I never watched another episode.
I liked Smith (RIP) and Daybreak (though I haven’t caught the online eps), but neither conflicted with other shows (new or old) that I also liked. I also caught onto Knights, but gave up on the hopeless Studio 60.
Is The Black Donnellys going to be canceled? I heard it was doing badly in the ratings. I can understand why, as there are exactly zero likeable characters on it, but I’ve been watching it faithfully since the beginning.
Black Donnellys (which filmed LITERALLY in front of my apartment building) is dead. Don’t care, I only checked it out to see if me or my neighbors made an appearance Six Degrees is also dead, which struck an even harder blow since they brought it back for two episodes, both of which were great.
I invested time in Studio 60 (which technically hasn’t been cancelled, but when it comes back, it’ll be on a Friday–when the show in a show airs–and low rating WILL have it cancelled), Smith (cancelling that show so fast was inexcusable…supposably the plug was pulled because CBS didn’t realize that the protaganists were killers, as opposed to hip Oceans 11-style thieves), Standoff and Justice. I also checked out both kidnapping shows, The Nine and Day Break and determined on my own that they were shit.
I am at the the point where I will wait until the season is over and then watch the most-talked about new shows on DVD, through Netflix. This especially applies with serials such as Heroes, where one really can’t jump in half-way through the year and expect the show to make much sense. An added benefit to waiting is that you don’t have to worry about the show being cancelled after only a few episodes. If that is the case, I just scratch it from my list.
Kidnapped, with Jeremy Sisto, Dana Delaney, Delroy Lindo and Tim Hutton. Cancelled after three weeks. It’s still the only TV I’ve bothered to watch on-line, and I sat at my computer every Friday morning for nine weeks waiting for NBC to put up the episodes.
I was hooked on the Knights of Prosperity. Unfortunately it looks like it won’t be back. I thought Kevin Michael Richardson’s Isaac Hayes impression was spot-on and the most hilarious thing about the show. I can’t believe he also voices the Joker on The Batman. I had a season pass set up for this show, so I hope my TiVo catches it if ABC burns off the unaired episodes.
I caught up with **Vanished ** and **Daybreak ** and think the way they wrapped up Vanished felt a bit desperate, trying to provide closure prematurely. Daybreak was only meant to be 13 eps, so the completion worked really well. However, I think they made a mistake putting “day 1, day 2, day 3” in every ep. My guess is that the network forced that, but it actually became a bit confusing and might have turned viewers off.
I wonder if the networks have to rethink their scheduling. **24 ** is on every week, **BSG ** will be shown in one stretch when it returns. Vanished had a problem when they killed the first FBI agent and then went off the air for six weeks or so. Trying to make 22 episodes stretch and fill the air for 40 weeks is going to lose viewers. A casual viewrs might find a new favorite during the hiatus and not come back.
Since you know Heroes is pretty safe, you should check out all the episodes that have happened so far - NBC.com has all of them streaming online for free. Get yourself caught up by April 23, and you can get into the last half of the season with the rest of us.
Full disclosure…my track record is slightly better than 0%. I’ve watched most of Men in Trees (plus a few eps queued up in Tivo that I can’t get enthusiastic enough to watch)…and it hasn’t been cancelled yet.
Ironically, shortly after the cancellation of Studio 60, Aaron Sorkin and Kristin Chenoweth reconciled and are now a couple again. It would have been interesting to see how this would have affected the scripts if the series had continued. Maybe Sorkin would have finally been able to move on and develop some new plotlines.
I’ve been watching this as well, and it’s really dark with four fairly dumb unlikeable criminals for protagonists. Studio 60, on the other hand, had much more likeable characters and was even entertaining at times.
I deliberately avoided most of the serial dramas of the past couple of seasons because most of them wouldn’t make it and would leave the storylines incomplete. But I watched Kidnapped until it was cancelled and then watched the remaining episodes online. The nice thing was that the writers spun out this incredibly elaborate kidnapping plot, but actually wrapped it up in a believable fashion by the end (unlike, Lost, say).
In the future, perhaps the network might announce a commitment to see a serial drama through to the end. I might sign on if I knew it wouldn’t leave me unsatisfied.
And The Knights of Prosperity was great. I loved the panic room episode.
This season, more than any other, I have begun to feel like the kiss of death. I was really enjoying Smith, Heist, Kidnapped, Standoff, Six Degrees, Studio 60 and perhaps another one or two, before they got shot down. I had started watching Shark and Jericho before deciding they weren’t worth the trouble. At least Six Degrees appears to be with us a while longer, after a long hiatus, but I have about decided not to go with anything new NBC puts up. They’re too quick on the trigger for me. I didn’t choose to get pulled into Black Donnellys for that very reason. Medium is the only NBC offering I’m watching and I still enjoy it.
Fox looks like it’s going for some deliberate foot-shoots soon so I’ll be dodging them, too. 24, House and Bones are good shows, but the entire American Idol effect is disgusting to me.
Boston Legal on ABC and The Unit and Survivor on CBS are all they’re offering that I care for.
I’m going to be more careful getting into new shows after this year’s results.
Thanks for the suggestion, but I really don’t enjoy trying to watch an hour long TV show on my 15" computer screen. I’ll just wait until Season 1 comes out on DVD and then watch the whole thing over the summer. Then I’ll add Season 2 to my Tivo Season Pass and I’ll be good to go.