As you probably already know, the TV networks’ cancellation and renewal lists are official. And after giving them a once over, I couldn’t help but be surprised in some cases. I mean ABC’s cross-dressing Work It and Christian-thumping GCB are both shows whose passing will be lamented by very few. But there are a number of others—such as NBC’s creative Awake and the Fox sci-fi program Terra Nova—that may leave a number of families wondering, “What happened to that show I liked?”
In fact, thewrap.com writer Tim Malloy thinks that those last two specific shows were two of network televisions’ big “gamble” titles from this past year—along with other bombers such as the racy flashback The Playboy Club and the J.J. Abrams-produced sci-fi prison tale Alcatraz. And it’s Malloy’s theory that because these shows and other risk-takers like them tanked, we’ll likely see a much blander set of offerings next season.
“This was a season that seemed to depressingly reinforce stereotypes about the TV landscape: Networks remain the main home for mass-market reality shows, broad comedies and procedurals,” Mallory opined.
In many respects, he nailed it. It’s not that any of the already mentioned shows were perfect (and one of them was decidedly less than watchable) but renewals of a non-ending string of empty reality shows, and pick-ups of tawdry comedies such as Cougar Town, Two and a Half Men and 2 Broke Girls just seem to scream that we’re collectively in something of a TV rut.
It also makes you wonder how studios decide on their cut-or-keep choices.
A unique show like Terra Nova was terminated even though it had an average viewership of nearly 11 million people, for instance, while Fox’s controversial, issues-pushing Glee easily made it on to the next round with a little over half that number.
Entertainment Weekly mulled that cancellation conundrum and concluded that, “The biggest mitigating factor was a show’s cost—which usually rises along with its age—along with the difficulty of a time period, who owns the program, how intensely critics and fans feel about the series and, believe it or not, whether a network’s executives like the show.”
I guess the “reality show = cheap” formulation really does make a difference: It’s cheap and a producer will like it because … it’s cheap. Fox reportedly canceled the very popular, long-running doc show House because the price tag was just too high.
But then again, who really knows what keeps a show on the air? Two “risky,” and presumably expensive, fairy tale-based offerings (ABC’s highly-rated Once Upon a Time and NBC’s marginal Grimm) will both keep weaving their storybook tales next season. And here’s another pleasant surprise: Once Upon a Time (though it has its problems) is a pretty decent family show.
We can hope that, someday, we’ll see ever more fabulous family shows that we can actually turn on in the family room during the family hour.
In the meantime, Don’t Trust the B—- in Apt. 23, ’cause for some reason, she’ll be on TV again next year, too.
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