It’s one thing when trash TV like “V”, “Flash Forward”, and “The Event” get cancelled on massive cliffhangers, but when pretty damn good stuff like “The Divide” and “In The Flesh” are abandoned with serious questions still in the air, it’s just cruel.
If nothing else, we should at least get something in writing wrapping up the story for us!
With all the great television and alternative outlets available, I think we’re going to see more of this (NOOOOOOOOO) but also more possibilities for getting things resolved.(Thank you, Netflix, For Arrested Development, and Amazon for Ripper Street! Whole seasons! Nice! Especially Ripper Street, final season was extremely satisfying.)
I just can’t figure out a way to get the entire “serial entertainment” (“TV” is a bit of misnomer these days) industry on board. Perhaps a direct appeal to the Writer’s Guild? Get them to build something into their contracts, requiring the producers to pay the writing staff to come up with a resolution story any time a show is cancelled?
I’m seriously trying to think of a resolution for this, which I know is almost certainly impossible… but the history of humans is filled with stories of the impossible becoming reality, so maybe this. I know for sure that there are hundreds of thousands, probably millions of people in the world who would be thrilled if an answer were found, that’s for sure.
On a very happy note, at least one of the all-time “Are you fucking KIDDING me?” cancellations might finally be fixed, some dozen years later:
A Law? Never happen. Sometimes networks cancel a series during hiatus, so the writers have no advance notice. Think of it this way… if the production company thinks there’s enough interest, they can produce a movie to tie up the loose ends. They’ll still have the sets.
If it’s canceled, then obviously somebody didn’t agree with you that it was “pretty damn good”. In fact, if there’s even a sizable minority who thinks that, they probably won’t have a hard time selling comic books or something that resolve it, and everyone likes selling stuff. If you don’t even get that, then it seems like very few people indeed shared your assessment of the quality of the work.
And that is the problem. As the old saying has it, one man’s trash is another’s treasure. I feel your pain, though. I’m still ticked off about the end of “Crime Story”.
“They can’t just cancel a show like Alphas. You know? They have to help the viewers let go. Firefly did a movie to wrap things up. Buffy the Vampire Slayer continued on as a comic book. Heroes gradually lowered the quality season by season till we were grateful it ended.”
I just write my own (in my head). The best part is that it always works out exactly the way I want. I see it as an opportunity. When you allow the writers to resolve the storyline, they frequently screw it up completely. When I’m left to resolve the storyline on my own, it’s always satisfying.
I also disagree that it had a cliffhanger ending. Flash foward was a one season story that used the very last scene on the last episode to set up a new season if they got picked up. The story we got was perfectly fine on its own.
Pushing Daisies and Awake knew that their chances not good, so they made changes to the final episodes – in both cases, short scenes that gave a sense of closure to the show, but which could have been used as a jumping off point for another season if the news was good.
Sledge Hammer did the same things – blowing up the city at the end of the final episode because they thought they had no chance of renewal. When renewed, the first episode just said, Sledge Hammer – the Early Years and continued as though nothing had happened.
One issue is that the final episode is usually complete before the decision came down. In both the examples about, they called the actors back and shot one new scene. But in many cases the actors are no longer available.
It is true, however, that I have stopped committing myself to new series (especially on Fox) because I’ve been burned so often. There just doesn’t seem to be any point in getting myself invested in characters and backstory if they’re likely to leave me hanging after a season’s worth of episodes. And I’m not interested in binge-watching entire seasons, so if a series does make it, it’s usually too late for me to catch up.
So there does seem to be a penalty for breaking faith with your viewers, which is that they develop a “fool me once, shame on you, fool me five or six times, fuck you” mentality.
Shows don’t always get cancelled because they’re terrible, and low ratings don’t mean they are terrible, either. Also “low ratings” is a very relative term…
And goddamnit I just found out there won’t be a second season of American Odyssey. Fuck!
Finagle, you have the right idea… Maybe I won’t watch anything until it’s completed one way or another and I determine in advance if people are grumbling about cliffhangers… shit.
…Leverage was another show that never had a season end on a cliffhanger and the showrunners said that they did this intentionally in case they got cancelled between seasons. They did get cancelled after five seasons but the fifth season finale closed the story out beautifully. (even though the cast and crew were hoping for the sixth.) As much as I loved the series and wanted to watch more I appreciate that I got a sense of real closure.
The cliffhanger’s purpose is to make sure they don’t get cancelled. If people didn’t write letter due to caring about the resolution of the story shows would just did when the bosses upstairs thought a different story would draw more interest the next season. This way if people care about keeping the show going (hi Community) it can live on despite what the bosses want
The hopeful news is that ratings are starting to pay more and more attention to DVR viewings. Like DVR+1, +3 and +7 days after original air. They’re beginning to take these more seriously and factor it into the numbers. I assume this includes on-demand and other streaming outlets that have non-skippable ads.
The days of Jericho, Flash Forward, The Event and so on, they were flat out ignoring them. And it’s starting to seem I’ll get into a series that seems doomed to fail from my past experience with certain genre serials I like, yet it gets picked up to my surprise.
I guess that explains why those much more interesting sci-fiey stuff got canned and that abortion known as Under the Dome has made it this far. Honestly, how whatshisname could stand to be in that dreck after Breaking Bad…talk about from the sublime to the ridiculous…
I know for sure that there are hundreds of thousands, probably millions of people in the world who would be thrilled if an answer were found, that’s for sure.