Top 5: Most Traumatic Early TV Series Cancellations

 

The fall TV season is upon us!  While a few shows have already gotten underway, the majority of shows begin debuting new episodes next week.  Tomorrow we’ll have up a KT Fall Show Premiere Guide so you can plot your couch potatoing for the next nine months.  With returning favorites, comes a crop of new shows, probably the most promising of the last five years.  Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, JJ Abrams’ Almost Human, Brooklyn Ninety-Nine and a whole host of potential time sucks just waiting to be discovered….and some of them will end up breaking your heart.

SHIELD is a good bet.  SHIELD isn’t going to break your heart.  It’s got Marvel and Disney going for it on a network Disney owns.  It’s going to be just fine.  It’s not going to do what these five shows did to me and I’m sure many of you.  You’ve got your own shows that lived on the bubble and didn’t make it, mostly thanks to network stupidity.  These are all available (except #3) on Netflix, Hulu and/or Amazon Prime so they can be revisited at will, but despite the different genres, networks and casts, they all have one thing in common: they all left way too soon.

1. Firefly (FOX)
This is kind of a no-brainer.  13 episodes (only 10 of which aired) of Firefly was enough to whip together a group of Brown Coat fans who are still nuts about this barely-scratched universe ten years after its cancellation.  FOX gave a JOSS WHEDON show ten episodes.  They aired the pilot and the first episode out of order and then switched its time slot twice.  This was a particular labor of love for Whedon and, like many of these shows, the cast has gone on to find success.  Nathan Fillion‘s Castle is beginning its fifth season.  Zoe Saldana stars in KT-favorite Suits over on USA.  Monica Baccarin is nominated for an Emmy on Sunday for her work on Homeland.  Summer Glau is joining the cast of Arrow for its second year.  It’s worth mentioning that, like #2 and #5, the story here has continued in comic books.  Whedon has also given Buffy the Vampire Slayer seasons eight and nine through comics.  The X-Files even recently returned for a tenth season in comic book form.

2. Pushing Daisies (ABC)

It’s almost impossible to describe Bryan Fuller‘s masterful Pushing Daisies.  Mostly because it sounds like a horrible idea, but then so does Breaking Bad‘s premise in a vacuum of the talent used to execute it.  There’s never been anything on TV like PD and it makes the best use of color of any show that’s ever been aired.  It’s a phenomenal series.  Lee Pace, who plays Ned on the show, is going to blow up in the next two years with big roles in the final two Hobbit movies and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.

3. Boomtown (NBC)
My friends are manically whacking their browsers closed right now because I have been unrelentingly annoying about Boomtown’s year and a quarter truncated run.  Boomtown could have been one of the best cop shows ever.  THE best ever.  Donnie Wahlberg, Neil McDonough, Mykelti Williamson, and a host of familiar faces you’ve seen in movies and on series since were on the best cop show I’ve ever seen and we only got 30 episodes.  You can get the first season on DVD and it’s worth every penny.  Graham Yost wrote and ran this show.  Google him and see what he’s gone on to do.  I’m not going to do it all for you!

4. SportsNight (ABC)

 

Sports Night really never had a chance.  It was Aaron Sorkin‘s first series right before The West Wing and ABC had no clue what to make of this look behind the running of a thinly disguised SportsCenter clone.  They imposed a horrendous laugh track on it the first season, shuffled it all over creation and then ended it after two years.  Every member of the cast has gone on to Emmy or Oscar nominated work and Sorkin got valuable experience from it and moved whole themes and monologues to The West Wing, Moneyball and other projects.  The best part of the show was Robert Guillaume, who suffered a stroke during the show’s run and then had the courage to show his recovery process on-air as part of the storyline.

5. Angel (The WB/CW)
OK, yes.  Angel got five years.  It’s a stretch to stick it on the list, next to shows that got 13 episodes.  However, Angel, which spun-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ended up becoming a more consistent and better show than Buffy.  It got better and better every season and had years of life left in it.  It did leave us with one of the best endings any show has ever had, but I’d have traded that for a few more years of its company.

 

Final Two Breaking Bad Episodes to be 75 Minutes Each

The only good news about only having two episodes of Breaking Bad left is that AMC has announced each will be 75 minutes long. I am trying to sit on spoilers for everyone not watching it live but I think we’re going to have to do a retrospective after the series finale on September 29th. If you are waiting and you were concerned if they could pull it off, rest easy.

JJ Abrams Says Episode VII Will Be “Emotional and Authentic” PLUS More Casting Rumors

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JJ Abrams doesn’t talk about his projects very often, but whenever he talks about Star Wars Episode VII: A New Dawn (we’re assuming), I just feel so pumped I can barely stand it.  Entertainment Weekly cornered him to talk about his latest TV show, Almost Human, and Abrams gave and extremely reassuring assessment of the tone and spirit of Ep. VII:

“Impossible for me to say because it’s going to be an evolving thing. I would say we are working really hard to make a movie that feels as emotional and authentic and exciting as possible. Whatever your favorite Star Wars movie is and how to compare it is really sort of subjective.”

The director then goes on to talk about the advice he’s been seeing from people regarding the how he should handle the development of the film:

“It’s been nice see that how important it is and to be reminded how important it is to so many people. We all know that [creator George Lucas‘] dream has become almost a religion to some people. I remember reading a thing somewhere, someone wrote about just wanting [the new film] to feel real; to feel authentic. I remember I felt that way when I was 11 years old when I saw the first one. As much of a fairy tale as it was, it felt real. And to me, that is exactly right.”

I couldn’t have put it better.  That’s precisely what I need from a Star Wars film.  JJ, amigo, broseph….c’mere and give me a hug!  HUG IT OUT IT’S FRIDAY!

Ahem….pardon.  I was born between A New Hope and Empire so the movies were a deep part of my childhood and the prequels hitting late adolescence/early adulthood were like some kind of parallel to the checkered reality of becoming “grown-up”.  I’m so excited to think that I might to go full circle back and be a kid again, because, I tell you, this adult nonsense?  This sucks.  I was not sold a full bill of goods on the maturing deal.

I promised casting rumors as well, and -no surprise- they come from Latino Review (who knew that they would be the pulse of the geek universe?).  They confirm my latest guess which is that Benedict Cumberbatch is cast and it’s a done deal for all three movies.  His part in VII is apparently small, but blows up in VIII and IX.  Specifically, they said:

“DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE ABOUT BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH NOT BEING IN STAR WARS. HE IS IN THE MOVIE! In fact, he will be in all three Star Wars films! It’s all a smoke screen. Folks, remember when Cumberbatch denied being Khan for over a year? Same situation here. At least give us the benefit of the doubt hence why we are bringing this up. Point is, he lied before and he can lie again. Google it. One more time because it is worth repeating, Benedict Cumberbatch will be will in the upcoming Star Wars movies. I don’t care if he denies it till opening day. We were right before about him playing Khan, and we will be right again on this one. Technically, his part in Episode VII is very small but the role is much bigger in Episode VIII and Episode IX.”

Saorise Ronan (The Lovely Bones, Hanna) has also been confirmed as having auditioned for a lead female role.  The film trilogy is long been thought to have a female protagonist (and JJ Abrams does very well with those, ask Jennifer Garner) so that seems like a good fit.

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DC Movies Announcements on the Horizon

Geek Tyrant has the latest scoop on what DC may actually be doing with its properties after Batman vs. Superman (it appears the Dark Knight-and rightly so-is getting top billing).  We’ve got Green Arrow and The Flash with shows on The CW, but what about the rest of the universe?  Find out below:

We’ve all been wondering when Warner Bros. is really going to pull the trigger on making more movies based on DC Comics superheroes. We knowBatman Vs. Superman is one the way, but it looks like the studio will be making more announcements in the near future.

Warner Bros. releases 12 to 14 movies annually, and CEO Kevin Tsujiharasays that the foundation of their upcoming slate of films will come from DC Entertainment,

“I think the basis, foundation of those 12 to 14 pictures are going to be coming from DC Entertainment.”

He goes on to confirm the title of Batman Vs. Superman, and talks about the upcoming announcements, saying,

“We have Batman Vs. Superman coming out in 2015, but there are going to be in the coming months a lot of announcements regarding the future movie, television, games and consumer product pieces that are going to be coming from DC… DC really does touch a lot of parts of our business and is an important part of the strategy in how we are going to grow going forward.”