David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. "The Nine" 86'd
If you're really, really curious as to what happened during that hostage crisis in the bank that's playing out on "The Nine," well, sorry. In an act of stealth programming, ABC during the long holiday weekend quietly trotted the show into a back alley, forced it to its knees and put a couple of bullets in the back of its head. ABC promises that the show is merely "on hiatus" and will return "later in the season," but we all know that network promises are coprophagous at best.
"The Nine" was a show that, despite a fine cast and critical admiration, apparently put off a lot of viewers because it just looked like hard work and, as it followed the show requiring the most heavy lifting in network primetime (that would be "Lost"), too many viewers for ABC's tastes opted to reserve some of their brain cells for other activities. And when "Day Break" - which is quickly pulling off a spectacular tank job - took over "Lost's" time slot, there soon became no audience for "The Nine" to lose.
Actually, "The Nine" never quite felt right as an ongoing series; it would've been much better as a limited or miniseries. Dragging out secrets - particularly those all the characters already know - can be vexing for viewers; knowing the whole story's going to be wrapped up in eight hours ameliorates having to wait. Besides, once all the major particulars of the hostage tragedy were revealed, what were they going to do next season? Reveal that one of them had smuggled some beef jerky into the bank but wouldn't share with the others? Have the nine decide to join forces as a crack crime-fighting unit?
So the freshly scrubbed and hopeful series of September are stacking up like cordwood quickly and earlier than ever. A lot of the cooling bodies belong to serialized shows, and the networks are at least trying at times to give those shows' shrinking number of fans some sense of closure. You can find out how NBC's "Kidnapped" and Fox's "Vanished" - similar shows with their networks' trademark styles (NBC: polished, big stars; Fox: hyperbolic, conspiracy-tinged) and suffered similar fates - would've played out online; CBS has posted "Smith's" intended story arc before its cancellation online.
Regrettably - oh, who am I kidding? - thankfully, NBC has not offered the same service for "20 Good Years," and The CW realizes no one cares enough about whatever was going to happen on "Runaway." Fox is too busy trying to figure out how to keep "Standoff" and "'Til Death" on life-support - Bill Frist said that based on video he's seen, those shows are alive and healthy, but everyone knows his record on that sort of thing - to worry with the fates of its cancelled shows "Justice" and "Happy Hour." ABC is pretending that "Six Degrees," also "on hiatus," will return, so that when the trigger is finally pulled, people will have forgotten about it and won't care what was going to happen.
And while NBC and ABC have been awfully sympathetic to its ailing shows - ABC's full-season pickup of "What About Brian" is the biggest head-scratcher so far, though NBC may come to regret ordering the back nine for "Friday Night Lights" and "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (which had its lowest numbers of the season on Monday, even though its lead-in "Heroes" had its highest) - the season's carnage is far from over.
Comments
Damn these networks! How do they expect us Little People to stay loyal to a show, any show, when cancellations are so seemingly arbitrary? Why should they expect us to invest in any of their hyped-up shows (even the good ones) if cancellation is almost guaranteed by mid-season? Dangling the carrot of showing un-aired episodes on the Internet is downright insulting, too.
What are they going to plug these scheduling holes with? More inane game shows? Grrr.
Posted by: Suzy Q | November 26, 2006 8:40 AM