# Why was "Over There" canceled? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 4, 2007, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-over-there-canceled/398654 "2007-04-04T01:35:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-over-there-canceled/398654/1 "2007-04-04T01:35:11Z")
The [Wikipedia article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over_There_%28TV_series%29) doesn’t say. ---
**Author:** ![aktep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f0a364/32.png) [@aktep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aktep)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-over-there-canceled/398654/2 "2007-04-04T01:49:05Z")
Maybe it’s been added since you posted, but I see: > [@wikipedia article](#): > > FX formally announced on November 1, 2005 that the show would not be returning due to declining ratings (though it can still be seen in reruns in some parts of the U.S. and Canada). The 13th and last episode of the series, “Follow the Money,” first aired in the U.S. on October 26, 2005. ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-over-there-canceled/398654/3 "2007-04-04T01:52:31Z")
According to the articles I found on Lexis-Nexis, the program lost around 60% of its audience during its run, making renewal cost-prohibitive. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-over-there-canceled/398654/4 "2007-04-04T01:57:30Z")
[QUOTE=Governor Quinn] According to the articles I found on Lexis-Nexis, the program lost around 60% of its audience during its run, making renewal cost-prohibitive. [/QUOTE] I wonder why? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-over-there-canceled/398654/5 "2007-04-04T02:15:33Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] I wonder why? [/QUOTE] Well, it wasn’t very good. ---
**Author:** ![feppytweed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/feppytweed/32/4280_2.png) [@feppytweed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/feppytweed)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-over-there-canceled/398654/6 "2007-04-04T03:11:03Z")
I thought the show was damn good. I was upset when it was canceled, but, what can you do? It’s a shame. ---
**Author:** ![jharvey963](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/54ee81/32.png) [@jharvey963](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jharvey963)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-over-there-canceled/398654/7 "2007-04-04T18:00:22Z")
I really enjoyed it, too. An episode would regularly end with a feeling of, wow… for me. I was often captivated by the horror of war, the choices good people had to make when put in barbaric, dangerous conditions, the toll it takes in both physical and, more importantly, mental terms on the participants… I could go on, but you get the idea. J. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-over-there-canceled/398654/8 "2007-04-04T20:27:36Z")
I never could bring myself to watch it (even though I love war movies, etc.)–it just seemed a bit too painfully close to current suffering over there. ---
**Author:** ![dmatsch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3be4f8/32.png) [@dmatsch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dmatsch)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-over-there-canceled/398654/9 "2007-04-04T20:40:53Z")
[QUOTE=feppytweed] I thought the show was damn good. I was upset when it was canceled, but, what can you do? It’s a shame. [/QUOTE] I’m with you. I liked it too and was upset that they cancelled it. The characters were stereotypical conflict movie types, but the writing was very good. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-over-there-canceled/398654/10 "2007-04-04T21:02:04Z")
[QUOTE=dmatsch] I’m with you. I liked it too and was upset that they cancelled it. **The characters were stereotypical conflict movie types** , but the writing was very good. [/QUOTE] (Emphasis mine) That’s why I didn’t like it. I think you can have a show about a current war, but it’s not going to be easy, and one of the difficulties you’ll face is that it’s harder to buy into stereotypical characters when the real deals are walking around. Stereotypes in a movie about WWII are one thing, because you realize there’s a degree of abstraction and the characters are symbols. It’s harder to buy that about symbolizing people you know personally. Consequently, I DIDN’T feel the writing was all thatgood, for that very reason; too many characters seemed drafted (ha!) from the Hollywood Central Repository of War Movie Characters. A few months back I read Thomas Ricks’s “Fiasco,” his acocunt of how the Iraq War went SNAFU, and to this day the part I remember most clearly was, whem mentioning a young soldier in a firefight, a sudden statement that she “wanted to be a modern dancer.” It was just tossed in there and didn’t connect to anything else but was amazingly effective, because it humanized this person, who otherwise would just have been another rank-firstname-lastname mentioned in a book that’s full of them. “Over There” threw some of that stuff in but I still found the characters too cookie cutter, and, consequently, the entire show just a bit too predictable for my liking. Of course, it’s purely my opinion, and it may not be why it was cancelled. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-over-there-canceled/398654/11 "2007-04-04T21:18:21Z")
[QUOTE=toadspittle] I never could bring myself to watch it (even though I love war movies, etc.)–it just seemed a bit too painfully close to current suffering over there. [/QUOTE] That could be part of it. This was the first attempt ever to air a TV drama about an **ongoing** war – one that is also a divisive political hot potato, any discussion of which can heat up tempers on both sides. Just imagine one of the Big Three airing a Vietnam drama in 1969! The exec who raised the suggestion would be taken out and shot!