So pick your favorites that never got out of the single digits, DO NOT name shows that where on for full seasons.
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FOX canceled "Lone Star" on Tuesday afternoon, after only two episodes had aired. And even though it was my favorite new network show of the season, the debut ratings were so bad that the network frankly would have been justified for canceling it after only one.
Even with the ratings, I know some fans of the show were shocked by the abruptness of the cancellation. I, unfortunately, have been covering TV long enough to be numb to the idea of cancellation after 3, 2 or even 1 episode. What's relatively rare about the "Lone Star" case is that it's a swift cancellation for a show that the networks and the press liked. I'm not saying that critics' darlings are guaranteed a long lifespan, but a disastrously-rated show that's working creatively will tend to get a longer leash than one that's terrible.
This cancellation made me think back to ABC's great, controversial priest drama "Nothing Sacred" from the late '90s, and I remembered it as another one that got yanked quickly due to ratings and pressure from The Catholic League, but in fact 15 episodes aired. For all the talk of how badly NBC and FOX treated Judd Apatow with "Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared," those shows produced 18 and 17 episodes, respectively, and got to air most of them. Similarly, "Firefly" fans like to curse FOX for how the network treated Joss Whedon's outer space Western, and yet 11 of the 14 episodes aired before the plug was pulled. Not great, but far, far better than the "Lone Star" people got.
When you run down a list of stillborn shows like this, they tend to be awful, like David E. Kelley's "girls club" (2 episodes) or the Brian Bosworth action show "Lawless" (1 episode). At best you'll find something mediocre with a good cast and/or creative pedigree, like John Wells, Ray Liotta and company with "Smith" (3 episodes).
So I decided to cast my memory back over the 15 or so years I've been a TV critic to think of other shows I liked a lot that didn't make it out of single digit episodes aired. It was harder than I thought (especially if you leave out something like "Andy Barker, PI," where the network only ordered six episodes and aired all of them), but here are five I came up with (and please note that Fienberg insisted that I at least mention the 4 episodes of "Wonderfalls," even though he liked that show a whole lot more than I did):
"EZ Streets" (CBS, 1996): First loves always break your heart. This Paul Haggis-created crime drama about a rogue cop (Ken Olin) chasing a crazy mobster (Joe Pantoliano, never better) and the ex-con caught in the middle (Jason Gedrick, also never better) was literally the first pilot episode I watched as a TV critic. It was fantastic, but also years ahead of its time, as it would have been better off in a world where cable was making a lot of original drama series. CBS aired two episodes in the fall, pulled it and promised to do a big relaunch in the spring that would involve re-airing those first two (since the show had a very complicated story arc), but instead just jumped ahead to episode three and pulled it after 8 episodes total had aired. I still have the unaired ninth episode on VHS, and it's so good that I'll occasionally plug in the ol' VCR to watch it again.
(Haggis and "EZ Streets" writer Bobby Moresco, by the way, would essentially try to re-do "EZ Streets" a decade later with NBC's "The Black Donnellys," which was a less interesting show but still good enough that its cancellation after six episodes disappointed me.)
"Action" (FOX, 1999): Jay Mohr played a vicious movie exectuve named Peter Dragon in a show that, even with the content restraints of a broadcast network, is the Hollywood comedy that "Entourage" on its best day wishes it could be. On the DVD commentary, creator Chris Thompson and producer Joel Silver (on whom Dragon was loosely based) admit that HBO was interested but that they wanted the bigger payday that FOX was offering. Their reward: cancellation after only 8 episodes had aired.
"Wonderland" (ABC, 2000): Before he produced "Friday Night Lights," or built a fairly successful career as a feature director, Peter Berg helped create this drama about the staff of a New York public mental hospital. My old writing partner Matt Seitz said at the time that, with its jittery visual style (which was actually more hyperactive than the stuff Berg has directed in the 10 years since), "This is the most uncompromising and stylistically innovative approach to TV drama since 'NYPD Blue' maybe since 'Hill Street Blues' 20 years ago." But the subject matter (including a storyline about a pregnant doctor who gets stabbed in the belly with an infected blood sample) was incredibly bleak, and ABC pulled the plug after two weeks. (DirecTV's The 101 Network, which helped save "FNL," aired all the episodes last year.)
"Keen Eddie" (FOX, 2003): This was the latest of FOX's many attempts in the late '90s and early '00s to program original scripted TV in the summer, a light drama about a brusing New York cop (Mark Valley) who moves across the pond to work out of Scotland Yard. It's the best role Valley has ever had, up to and including "Human Target," featured a young and saucy Sienna Miller and lots of good London locations. Everybody seemed to like it except viewers, and FOX pulled it after 7 episodes. (Another 6 aired the following year on Bravo.)
"Love Monkey" (CBS, 2006): Right show, wrong network. Tom Cavanagh from "Ed" played a record company executive who has a Jerry Maguire moment, loses his job and winds up hustling for a small independent label, trying to find and break new artists at the same time he hung out with his buddies and looked for love in the big city. With its mix of comedy, romance and a lot of indie rock, it would have been a perfect fit over at ABC airing after "Grey's Anatomy." Instead, it was on CBS at a time when every other drama on the schedule seemed to be a "CSI" spin-off. Three episodes and out.
Of the shows listed I remember liking Action OK, and I really liked Keen Eddie. 1 in a long long line of prematurely canceled FOX shows. Another canceled show I liked on Fox was The $treet. I mainly like it because Jennifer Connelly was in it, and thats enough for me.
I remember a show on NBC I liked a few years ago called the Black Donnelly's, I don't think they aired more than 10.
I really liked the comedy Teachers and that was canceled really fast.
Hmm, if your talking about the US remake that was on NBC, I had high hopes for it, but god it sucked. Try and find the original UK Teachers on DVD if you can, the first 2 series of it are awesome, it goes downhill from there though.
Also if you liked the blonde teacher from Britain in it (Sarah Alexander), she can be seen in the excellent TV show Coupling, and also Worst Week of My Life (also remade into a US sitcom).
Hmm, if your talking about the US remake that was on NBC, I had high hopes for it, but god it sucked. Try and find the original UK Teachers on DVD if you can, the first 2 series of it are awesome, it goes downhill from there though.
Also if you liked the blonde teacher from Britain in it (Sarah Alexander), she can be seen in the excellent TV show Coupling, and also Worst Week of My Life (also remade into a US sitcom).
Yeah that's it and I saw the whole British series that's why I was going to start watching the American remake but yeah I found it enjoyable but it would never come close to the UK series.
i only think there were 8-9 episodes of a show called "the class" which was on cbs i believe a couple years ago.
it had the guy from the gay couple on modern family that has the beard.
I liked that show too, I never realized the guy who plays Mitchell on Modern Family was on it. That show also featured Lizzy Caplan, who was on Party Down and True Blood, and Jason Ritter, who is on The Event and was on Parenthood, as well as David Keith of the just canceled Lone Star. Per IMDB The Class had 19 episodes that aired.
Of the shows listed I remember liking Action OK, and I really liked Keen Eddie. 1 in a long long line of prematurely canceled FOX shows. Another canceled show I liked on Fox was The $treet. I mainly like it because Jennifer Connelly was in it, and thats enough for me.
I remember a show on NBC I liked a few years ago called the Black Donnelly's, I don't think they aired more than 10.
I LOVED the Black Donnelly's it was actually my very first thought when I read the article I posted. They aired like 7 episodes and than the rest where put on the NBC website. That show was the reason I first fell in love with Olivia Wilde.
Do shows count if they never made it out of the pilot stage. Fox aired the pilot of Virtuality as a TV movie, which I might have tried to follow if there had ever been more episodes produced. Otherwise, I'll go with Fox's Wonderfalls at four episodes.
Last edited by primitiveskin; 09-30-2010 at 01:10 AM.
I wish that they would've had Lone Star airing on FX and it would still be on the air without having the same rating pressures on basic cable as it would on network TV. It could've easily had a nice 5 year run there.
I'm pretty sure this show aired all 13 of it's first season episodes, and got a sort of conclusion to it's cliffhanger on an episode of The X-Files.
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Originally Posted by LethalStriker
I wish that they would've had Lone Star airing on FX and it would still be on the air without having the same rating pressures on basic cable as it would on network TV. It could've easily had a nice 5 year run there.
I actually think Lone Star would have been a much better fit on AMC. Consider the pacing of Mad Men and Breaking Bad. It would have been a perfect fit. Shows on FX are more action oriented, just look at Rescue Me, Justified, Sons of Anarchy, The Shield. Of course there where the rare shows like The Riches and Damages but they never found an audience there. Nip/Tuck lasted because it was borderline porn lol.
1. Drive (2007) starred Nathan Fillion in a '72 Challenger and co-starred among many others Emma Stone, Kevin Alejandro, Dylan Baker, Melanie Lynskey and Taryn Manning.
The series was set across the backdrop of an illegal automobile road race with the central focus being on the competitors and eventually on the puppet masters behind the race. Regarding the tone of the show, Minear has described it by saying "a secret, illegal, underground road race can be anything from Cannonball Run to The Game to North by Northwest to Magnolia-on-wheels. Ours is all those things."
It debuted in the United States on April 15, 2007 on Fox, and moved into its regular time slot on Mondays the next day; in that slot it faced stiff competition from NBC's Deal or No Deal and ABC's Dancing with the Stars. On April 25, Fox cancelled Drive only after four episodes had aired.
1. Kings (2009)
Kings was an American television drama series which aired on NBC and Citytv. The series' narrative is loosely based on the Biblical story of King David, but set in a kingdom that culturally and technologically resembles the present-day United States.
The March 15, 2009 premiere placed 4th in network television ratings for that evening. After four episodes aired, NBC moved it to a Saturday slot, but only showed one more episode before pulling the series until summer. The remaining seven episodes were aired on Saturdays in June and July; however Kings was canceled after failing to find a sufficient audience.
1. Drive (2007) starred Nathan Fillion in a '72 Challenger and co-starred among many others Emma Stone, Kevin Alejandro, Dylan Baker, Melanie Lynskey and Taryn Manning.
The series was set across the backdrop of an illegal automobile road race with the central focus being on the competitors and eventually on the puppet masters behind the race. Regarding the tone of the show, Minear has described it by saying "a secret, illegal, underground road race can be anything from Cannonball Run to The Game to North by Northwest to Magnolia-on-wheels. Ours is all those things."
It debuted in the United States on April 15, 2007 on Fox, and moved into its regular time slot on Mondays the next day; in that slot it faced stiff competition from NBC's Deal or No Deal and ABC's Dancing with the Stars. On April 25, Fox cancelled Drive only after four episodes had aired.
1. Kings (2009)
Kings was an American television drama series which aired on NBC and Citytv. The series' narrative is loosely based on the Biblical story of King David, but set in a kingdom that culturally and technologically resembles the present-day United States.
The March 15, 2009 premiere placed 4th in network television ratings for that evening. After four episodes aired, NBC moved it to a Saturday slot, but only showed one more episode before pulling the series until summer. The remaining seven episodes were aired on Saturdays in June and July; however Kings was canceled after failing to find a sufficient audience.
I swear after they moved it to Saturdays I only remember like 3 episodes being shown before it was pulled. I remember because Macauley Culkin was supposed to be the next guest star on the upcoming episode which I wanna say was episode 7 or 8, but it was pulled before they even aired it. So I never even saw the last 6 episodes or so.
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