Hiatus: It’s the kinder, gentler cancellation. It is the undiscovered country, from whose bourn few TV shows return. It is where Fox’s Happy Hour has gone. It’s where Fox’s Justice is going. Is it the shape of things to come?
Both Happy Hour (starring Lex Medlin and John Sloan, pictured) and Justice were about 35 percent off their pilot numbers, but the ratings gloom is hardly restricted to Murdochland. Across the tube-iverse, the outlook is the same: No breakout hits. Sure, there are plenty more frosh hopefuls still-to-matriculate (the promising-looking Heroes, Tina Fey’s 30 Rock), but you can bet that last week saw a lot of network nails chewed down to the second knuckle. There’s no glimmer of the next Housewives, the next Earl, the next out-of-the-gate contender. (Sorry, Studio 60.)
Fox has the rest of baseball season to figure out how to stop the bleeding, but maybe you can save them (and the other networks) some time: What have you liked so far? What deserves to stay on the air? What’s the next brilliant-but-cancelled series? Who’ll get the first high-profile letter-writing campaign? Who’s most likely to perish, only to get a Family Guy resurrection? And, most important, where can I buy bootlegs of Costello?
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I love Justice, but its going to get killed when Lost comes back. Its a shame because Eamonn Walker is such a good actor.
I just saw “Runaway” last night on the CW and it’s my break away hit. It’s full of mystery and hot guys. Since Darren Star is the producer, I’m thinking it’s going to be good. The biggest mystery is the actor who plays the new neighbor next door – cutie cute cute!
Out: The Class, it’s alright but not hi-hi hilarious.
So far, I’ve liked Shark, Smith, Six Degrees, and Kidnapped. Vanished, Studio 60, The Class, and Happy Hour are my first casualties of the season. I liked Justice originally, but James Woods runs circles around Victor Garber. And incidentally, The Class is the most boring, depressing “comedy” I’ve ever seen. How on earth could people say it was the new “Friends”? UGH!
I like “Happy Hour”. Mindless, yes, but isn’t that what it is supposed to be? Must everything be wonderful, inspired? And the same idiots who watch “Family Guy” and “MArried with CHildren” should love this show. (Yes, I know, I called myself an idiot.). We can’t all hope for “Gilmore Girls” writing and witty repartee.
Sue Costello is a funny comedian, but come on the show was bland, that’s why it got canned.
Happy Hour was Harold and Kumar meets How I met your Mother. It never worked, plus it was snooze funny.
Kidnapped is going to focus on one kidnapping rather than end the season by finding the victim and solving another kidnapping. So by not doing what would make a show run smoothly and what would get the viewers attention, it will get canned because it is a movie plot. Speaking of which the writers of Threshold should have thought of that too. A Sci FI Channel movie would have been cool. Anyway, the same with Smith, it is a movie so it will get canned. The next on my list is 20 good years. Tambor and Lithgow are amazing, but this show looks as if it is on life support already.
What happenned to Fox this year and who are they going to have to fire to get some creativity flowing, their new shows suck, and I mean, there’s sucking, and then there is succcccking.
I am actually enjoying the old shows more. Desperate Housewives new season began like a brand new spanking pilot of greatness. And Grey’s Anatomy made me cry from beginning to end.
On the side of the new ones. I thought Studio 60 seemed awfully familiar. Last nights episode used 2 scenes that I had seen in the west wing before. I liked SMITH, but hated the title, and I enjoyed Heroes enough to give it another try. Loved Six Degrees in theory, but may not want to show up for it every week. The rest of the shows, not really for me. I’m awaiting Ugly Betty and The Nine. Let’s just say my tv schedule this year is ending up looking meager. Which I am thankful for, I could really use the extra hours.
The problem with shows breaking out right now is that there is just too many good shows on TV. Unless you have 2 DVR’s is it impossible to watch all the quality shows. Studio 60 is really good but may be to “smart” for many. Kidnapped was great but NBC isn’t promoting very well. Smith is well done with a A-list cast but can it hold an audience? I enjoyed Heroes last night and I look forward to new shows like The Nine and 30 Rock. But there are only so many hours in the week to watch TV and most people will stay with a safe show they know and like such as a CSI:Miami or Law & Order than give a new show a chance. Especially when after last season people don;t want to get invested in a show to only see it get quickly cancelled (i.e Threshold, Reunion). It’s going to be tough to find a “Breakout Hit” anymore.
Out of the new season, I’m planning to watch Studio 60, 30 Rock, Heroes, and 20 Good Years, so hopefully those stick around.
I will watch one more Heroes, but I suspect Studio 60… will be the only new show on my palette this season. Otherwise, it will be Studio on Monday, House and Veronica Mars Tuesday (is House going to stay at 8 pm, or will it indeed move to the originally announced 9 pm slot down the road after baseballi over?), and CSI on Thursday. Everything else I watch will come from Netflix.
Two words: Ugly Betty. If that’s not a break-out hit, all will be lost.
So far I too have enjoyed the Monday night shows of “Heroes” and “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”. That is about it though, and they have tough competition against Monday Night Football. No show this year will be able to replace old stalwarts like “LOST” or “Survivor” however. (I love getting stranded on deserted isles)
Men in Trees has to go soon, right? It just has to!
Still waiting on 30 Rock, which I’m hoping will be brilliant. I already can’t get enough of Studio 60 if only because it still gives me my weekly Bradley Whitford fix.
First off, it’s because mainly it has been Fox and NBC out of the gate, so theres one reason nothing really stands out. Though I have high hopes for Heroes (quite great last night) and Friday Night Lights. Everything though has been a GOOD show but not GREAT. But at least less BAD shows generally speaking. Even Justice is a good show, just that, do we need another lawyer show? (ditto with Shark). I’m most excited for Ugly Betty now. I think that will be this years break out show.
But I agree with JD. When there are so many quality shows on now, unless you’re running around with VCR’s in every room or Tivo, somethings gonna give.
I just thought about this while writing about the shows, and I have to point it out. I have seen a total of two premieres actually on Television. That was Heroes last night, and the season premiere of Prison Break. then I discovered something wonderful. STREAMING.
I have watched all the other premieres on my computer. while Streaming, and with a wireless connection I can stream from anywhere. I caught Studio 60 in Central Park. Desperate Housewives while waiting for a meeting, Six Degrees at five oclock in the morning, Smith saturday afternoon when there was nothing to watch, and I was getting ready to go out for the night.
Streaming, is the most wonderful thing. I mean, I am in love with it. It allows me to create my own schedule, ratings be damned (I’m even watchign survivor, which I never did before, thanks to something cbs calls innertube.) I consider CBS the cleanest sleeker streamer, ABC is adorable fun sleeker and I love the way they handle their advertising, I have even been draw to advertisor websites to check out, NBC is the one that gives me the slowest connection, and I don’t like the way they break up their show into chapter boxes, but it’s all good, new technology.
This week I am trading in my older laptop, to allow me to maximize my streaming capabilities. It’s like taking your television out of dates. As a matter of fact, I was out on a date when I caught Six Degrees, my date kept telling me how wonderful the show was, and then we went home, cuddled pulled out the LAPTOP, put it really close to us, and stayed up all night watching the new abc shows (amongst other things.)
Streaming, it’s the wave of the future and it’s beautfiul.
Here are the new shows to watch…
Studio 60
Smith
The Nine
Heroes
Friday Night Lights
Kidnapped
30 Rock
Ugly Betty
The new shows on FOX (Vanished, Justice, Standoff) are all poor efforts. ABC is no better with Brothers & Sisters and Six Degrees (whatever happened to Sons & Daughters???) CBS doesn’t have much new but NBC is really doing a great job with their new programming (other than 20 Good Years. But with shows like LOST, Veronica Mars, House, Prison Break, ER, The Office, Earl, Grey’s and Desperate Housewives I think we can all find high quality shows 5 nights a week.
“Heroes” was great last night, I hope it lives up to its promise and manages to stick around.
Bring Back Married w/ Children
I love Studio 60. It’s intelligently written. So it doesn’t stand a chance. God forbid, people have to think about what they are watching.
Kidnapped was good. I’m looking forward to 30 Rock, Ugly Betty, and Friday Night Lights. Hopefully, I won’t have to think to hard about them.
How can people not like the Class??? I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time…also Heroes is amazing and Studio 60 is smart TV and there isn’t a lot of that left anymore…
let’s face it: there’s not one close to great new show this season. but who thought there would be? i could have told you that months ago when i first saw the network’s prospective fall schedules. the next Earl? the next Desperate Housewives? those shows are far from great as well…
I think the problem is that we expect all of these new shows to be cancelled. Nobody I’ve ever known has had a Nielsen box, so there’s no reason for anyone to start championing a new show because statistically speaking, it’s probably going to be cancelled. Even if the show flops, if it made it through a full season it’ll at least get a token DVD release and you can watch it then.
There are so many good shows that I’m watching right now on DVD (eg. Battlestar Galactica), that unless a pilot immediately punches me in the mouth with awesomeness and forces me to readjust the TiVo season pass list, it’s just not getting watched in its first run. A “good” show just doesn’t cut it anymore. It needs to be great and original right out of the gate.
I don’t know why the networks keep releasing “good” rehashed material and then wondering why nobody is watching.
Studio 60 is, by far, the best new show of the season. I think it, Ugly Betty, The Nine, Heroes, 30 Rock, and Help Me Help You will all do well. If I had absolutely nothing else to do, here is what my week would look like:
Sunday: The Simpsons, Desperate Housewives, Brothers and Sisters
Monday: Prison Break, Heroes, Studio 60
Tuesday: Dancing with the Stars, The Unit, Nip/Tuck
Wednesday: Lost, Project Runway, The Nine
Thursday: Ugly Betty, The Office, Grey’s Anatomy
And, of course, 24 and American Idol come January!
Sigh, so much TV, so little time (of course, if I actually had the time to watch all these shows, I’d try to get a job as an EW writer!)
I think, as some people have already pointed out, that there were already good shows on television, which, may not have been true in years past. I mean, there’s only so much tv a person can watch.
Also, I was thinking when I was watching the Class last night, how is How I Met Your Mother so funny and the Class so. . .unfunny?
Jason, I said it from the start. Sons and Daughters could have NEVER worked on regular network television. Would Larry David’s “C.Y.E” have worked or “Sex in the City” when it was not in reruns minus the adult content? Of course not. “Monk” would have failed too. These are products of intelligent writing. And Sons and Daughters is only funny to people who have dealt with seriously dysfunctional but intelligent families. That is why I found it funny. Kudos for ABC for switching “Betty” to Thursdays rather than Friday where it would have been cancelled.
Precisely the same reason that Arrested Development never caught on (yes, I am STILL lamenting it). That, and you actually had to follow a storyline across more than one episode…
First off I have to calm some rage, “Men in Trees” better not be going nowhere! That show is a breath of fresh air in a sea of shows that look exactly alike (anything else set in Elmo, Alaska? Didn’t think so.)
As for this season, I think it comes down to the problem of hype. Because exec producers release details, mags like EW write “Fall TV previews,” blogs rant incessantly about what they’re looking forward to, someone says something like “my DVR’s exploding!” we think everything premiering is gonna be the next big thing.
Remember, when “Friends,” “Seinfeld,” “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “The Practice” (I could keep going) premiered, no one was glued to their screens. They got good over time. A few of these new shows will do the same and most others will be cancelled. So goes the TV life cycle.
Oh and “Brothers & Sisters” better not go anywhere neither, for the record.
Boo Hiss! Happy Hour was everything it is supposed to be, mindless fun. Beth Locke is my new crush….HOT! Dare I say again…HOT HOT HOT! Heroes was awesome last night, I hope they keep it up. I had to do an IMDb for Ali Lauter, oh yea, Final Destination. Best new show of the season, although I have Studio 60 still waiting in the wings of TiVO. House still rules all! Haters can only hope to be as arrogant has Hugh Laurie.
Studio 60 shd be ended. I like the premise of Heroes and Rachel Griffiths. So then she shd be added to the cast of Heroes and Sorkin shd write Heroes. Maybe half as good as the Wire, yay!
Why do 3 good shows have to be on at the same time? I really want to see Ugly Betty, but it is on the same time as Earl and Survivor. I can only tape/Tivo so many things, people! Why not put something on Tuesday night when there is absolutely nothing on?
Wow – saw Heroes last night and was VERY disappointed. Badly written, overwritten, too much back story that was manipulative and trite. Yick. Why do people have to take a good concept and f it up so badly?
Maybe it’s because, as one of the overwritten characters said, “Humans only use 10 percent of their brain power” – except that’s an urban myth that charlatans use to explain the “paranormal.” The writers can’t even bother to research their facts, and now I can’t be bothered to watch the bloated pile of crap again.