2015-16 TV Cancellations: The Beast, having been fed, asks waiter for his bill.

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We lost Almost Human to have Minority Report.

Are you serious Fox?

Nah, you lost Almost Human because the ratings were weak and Warner Bros wouldn't come down on the price at all, if I recall the scuttlebutt correctly.

No need to keep under-performing mediocrities on the air just because another show might fail as well.
 
As all of the other network's schedules turn into dumpster fires, I'm more and more surprised at how ABC's been able to keep their Wednesday comedy block successful and also start new successful comedy blocks on other days of the week. Seems like a fluke.
 
Nah, you lost Almost Human because the ratings were weak and Warner Bros wouldn't come down on the price at all, if I recall the scuttlebutt correctly.

No need to keep under-performing mediocrities on the air just because another show might fail as well.

it's a bit weird to cancel one expensive-ass boring show just to greenlight a show that's like 2% different and is also going to get cancelled after one expensive-ass boring season.

it's doubly weird when your business case for doing so is "well, there was this movie like 15 years ago and some people kinda liked it??? maybe???"
 
it's a bit weird to cancel one expensive-ass boring show just to greenlight a show that's like 2% different and is also going to get cancelled after one expensive-ass boring season.

it's doubly weird when your business case for doing so is "well, there was this movie like 15 years ago and some people kinda liked it??? maybe???"

This, except when you also shit on Almost Human. Bastards
 
Nah, you lost Almost Human because the ratings were weak and Warner Bros wouldn't come down on the price at all, if I recall the scuttlebutt correctly.

No need to keep under-performing mediocrities on the air just because another show might fail as well.

It's ratings were weak-ish, but Almost Human premiered 2.0 demo points higher. Its second episode still had double the amount in the demo compared to Minority Report in its premiere. If Minority Report knows the same percentage losses as Almost Human, it will be beaten by CW repeats. They had some audience with Almost Human.
 
And now, in "holy shit dude welcome to 2014" news, I've been watching Penny Dreadful on and off, how in the flying fuck did Eva Green not win a emmy for that season 1 episode 5 performance?
 
Well hey, at least The Player's premise isn't completely gross because the show is self-aware that a lot of it is pretty gross and tries avoiding it while doing the same thing. Interest piqued.
 
As all of the other network's schedules turn into dumpster fires, I'm more and more surprised at how ABC's been able to keep their Wednesday comedy block successful and also start new successful comedy blocks on other days of the week. Seems like a fluke.

The problem is that ABC is about to hit the Must See TV problem with their Wednesday. Both anchors (The Middle and Modern Family) are in their seventh season, and probably don't have very much longer to live.
 
The problem is that ABC is about to hit the Must See TV problem with their Wednesday. Both anchors (The Middle and Modern Family) are in their seventh season, and probably don't have very much longer to live.

They'll probably try to make Goldbergs and Blackish into anchors, which may work OK (although neither is a hit like Modern Family was). Goldbergs at 8, Blackish at 9, maybe move Fresh Off to Boat to 8:30 and debut a new comedy at 9:30. That could work for at least a couple years.
 
it's a bit weird to cancel one expensive-ass boring show just to greenlight a show that's like 2% different and is also going to get cancelled after one expensive-ass boring season.

it's doubly weird when your business case for doing so is "well, there was this movie like 15 years ago and some people kinda liked it??? maybe???"

I agree. Personally I think Fox should give up on the whole vaguely sci-fi procedural thing. It's a creative and ratings dead end.
 
Murder was pretty soft at 2.6. I guess Scandal is still queen of Thursday nights for ABC with a 3.2.

LoL @ NBC. 2.0 / 1.9 for the two hours of Heroes: Rehashed and 1.2 for Player. Rough as hell. Another dead night for the network.

My favorite whipping boy, Fox, didn't even try with a repeat of the two-hour Scream Queens premiere that got CW numbers.
 
Grey's did better than I thought it would, HTGAWM did much worse. Kind of surprised The Player bombed so hard - I think NBC should have given it the post-Voice slot on Tuesdays instead of Best Time Ever.

Half-hours for Heroes:

8 7M
8:30 6M
9 5.7M
9:30 5.5M

Yikes.

That's pretty bad, but it did at least hold tight in its demo:

8 - 2.1
8:30 - 1.9
9 - 1.9
9:30 - 1.9
 
the stupid name made me ignore it last year, but the emmy win, and Gaf liking it in general makes me want to check out How to get away wtih murder, should I?
 
the stupid name made me ignore it last year, but the emmy win, and Gaf liking it in general makes me want to check out How to get away wtih murder, should I?
If you like your protagonists to be emotionally exposed and vulnerable then definitely. This season doesn't begin in earnest until Blood&Oil premieres.
 
And now, in "holy shit dude welcome to 2014" news, I've been watching Penny Dreadful on and off, how in the flying fuck did Eva Green not win a emmy for that season 1 episode 5 performance?

Wait till season 2. She should have won an Emmy for every episode. She really kills it.

the stupid name made me ignore it last year, but the emmy win, and Gaf liking it in general makes me want to check out How to get away wtih murder, should I?

Eh. It's a little less outlandish than Scandal (though not by much), but also more boring. Plus all the law students are terrible characters and annoying to boot. It's certainly watchable though.
 
Brief pilot ponderings:

Limitless: Solid pilot with impressive, creative directing by Webb. For a pilot, this was the best of these four, I think, though having seen so many ads for Blindspot probably is skewing my perspective a bit. They picked a good Bradley Cooper-esque actor. The protag here doesn't look like him, but he does have similar facial mannerisms that remind me of the star of the original film, which I enjoyed as a pretty solid action flick. The show has potential for sure. I just want the procedural aspect to be compelling because that's usually the toughest sell for me.

Blindspot: Speaking of which. Very solid for a pilot. Similar feel to Blacklist, with some shades of Dollhouse as well. Martin Gero created the terrific and unique LA Complex, so I am hoping subsequent episodes will offer him ample opportunity to flex his considerable creative muscles. I was very impressed with Jaimie Alexander's acting in the episode. She didn't overdo it at all and was very believable in the role. Nice, diverse cast in this one, too. (Oh, and again, hoping the procedural aspect can be compelling to me.)

The Muppets: Wow, really disappointed with this Muppets show. I love the Muppets in general and the Jason Segel movie, although I haven't seen its sequel. This was like...Darkest Timeline Muppets with a dash of Up All Night and a hearty pinch of The Office. It was missing the sweetness and lightness I love about The Muppets. Lots of people seemed to like it, so I don't think I'd be able to easily tell if it changes back into my kind of Muppets, so for now I will assume I won't be trying this one again.

The Player: Uh, meh overall on this one. The action was decently slick but not terribly exciting. The last-second twist was okay. The procedural aspect and overall premise (both the show's premise and the main character's decision to join up with the shadowy org.) make very little sense and I kept feeling like it was a poor man's Person of Interest. I dunno. It wasn't terrible or anything but it's so hard for me to see how a network thought this was going to catch on with audiences. If I hear it gets amazing, I could give it another shot, but for now I'm shelving it. I did think the first 25% of the episode was significantly better and more interesting than the rest of it.
 
More predictions!

Heroes: Reborn - 2.6 (2.0)

The Player - 2.3 (1.2)

+0.6

+1.1

T'was way off on both, but these things happen every now and then I suppose!

Back in May when I watched both trailers, I thought The Player looked like a bigger hit than Blindspot. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
I thought the Player pilot was pretty fun, the show is hilariously over the top. Wesley Snipes is a fucking riot and the premise is funny. Wish it had done better. Maybe the Blacklist lead will help it.
 
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The Player pilot was horrible. It was like the Michael Bay / Las Vegas version of
Person of Interest

Scott landed a better gig than Stonebridge, because Blindspot pilot was okay even though it wasn't very original (Blacklist mixed with XIII).
 
I was a massive fan of the Muppets as a kid. The new show is plain boring. All the jokes feel flat and there wasn't any of that charming zany behavior I expected. The pilot doesn't really sell me on the show going forward.

The "Tom Bergeron is boring" angle was particularly ironic since his bits were the funniest in the show.
 
It knows it target audiences and well. It effortlessly blends mundane workplace tasks and camaraderie with fantastical escapism. It's the Harry Potter for Baby Boomers.
It also has the most boring action possible. They blew up a humvee on some bridge in New Orleans and it was so dumb.

Then again, I still scrub the shows so what does that say about me. lol
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Apropos of nothing, I watched pretty much all of MASH starting from S4 again and it's still one of the best shows ever made. It had a lot of gimmick episodes that we still see from time to time today, and probably has some of the strongest writing and acting in an 8 season (not counting the first three years because, well, you know) series.

Interesting things I noticed with watching the show in such a compressed time:
I watched this as reruns as a kid, so I didn't know anything about how shows were produced. Alan Alda really took over the show, writing and directing many, many episodes of the show. There's a clear divide between the first three seasons and the the last eight seasons and I think without question the "Alda years" were superior.

They slowly removed the non-diegetic music from the show by season 9. The series would have musical zingers leading into commercials or between scene changes to punctuate a joke, but that's pretty much all gone with a few exceptions by the end of the series.

To that end, assuming Netflix's version of the show is also the broadcast version of the show, they also dropped the laugh track completely by season 9.

There is absolutely no real continuity. Some season 10 shows were aired as part of season 11, and the series as a whole is really an anthology of stories rather than one story about the progress of the Korean war. That said, it works because the cast of characters is so strong. They're allowed to grow, even if nothing really sticks to them.

AfterMASH isn't a terrible piece of shit that I thought it would be. It in no way comes close to MASH of course, but the premise of a show where you still have a cast of characters dealing with the bureaucracy of running a hospital (with incompetent civilian leaders instead of I-Corps) but in the context of dealing with soldiers who have trouble integrating back home - whether because of a physical impairment or because of PTSD. One of the surgeons in the season season of the show lost his leg in Korea, so you have a main character living through those effects as well. Of course, it also kind of poops all over probably the greatest TV finale ever produced in terms of how it resolves the plot of the three leads that moved on to AfterMASH, but what can you do.

I can also see why the WALTER spinoff died a quick death. That's really the black sheep of the MASH spinoffs.

Too bad Netflix doesn't have Roseanne, because I wouldn't mind going through all 9 seasons of that sometime. But it was fun to revisit MASH and see that even in 2015, it holds up as one of the best shows I've ever watched.
 
Apropos of nothing, I watched pretty much all of MASH starting from S4 again and it's still one of the best shows ever made. It had a lot of gimmick episodes that we still see from time to time today, and probably has some of the strongest writing and acting in an 8 season (not counting the first three years because, well, you know) series.

Interesting things I noticed with watching the show in such a compressed time:
I watched this as reruns as a kid, so I didn't know anything about how shows were produced. Alan Alda really took over the show, writing and directing many, many episodes of the show. There's a clear divide between the first three seasons and the the last eight seasons and I think without question the "Alda years" were superior.

They slowly removed the non-diegetic music from the show by season 9. The series would have musical zingers leading into commercials or between scene changes to punctuate a joke, but that's pretty much all gone with a few exceptions by the end of the series.

To that end, assuming Netflix's version of the show is also the broadcast version of the show, they also dropped the laugh track completely by season 9.

There is absolutely no real continuity. Some season 10 shows were aired as part of season 11, and the series as a whole is really an anthology of stories rather than one story about the progress of the Korean war. That said, it works because the cast of characters is so strong. They're allowed to grow, even if nothing really sticks to them.

AfterMASH isn't a terrible piece of shit that I thought it would be. It in no way comes close to MASH of course, but the premise of a show where you still have a cast of characters dealing with the bureaucracy of running a hospital (with incompetent civilian leaders instead of I-Corps) but in the context of dealing with soldiers who have trouble integrating back home - whether because of a physical impairment or because of PTSD. One of the surgeons in the season season of the show lost his leg in Korea, so you have a main character living through those effects as well. Of course, it also kind of poops all over probably the greatest TV finale ever produced in terms of how it resolves the plot of the three leads that moved on to AfterMASH, but what can you do.

I can also see why the WALTER spinoff died a quick death. That's really the black sheep of the MASH spinoffs.

Too bad Netflix doesn't have Roseanne, because I wouldn't mind going through all 9 seasons of that sometime. But it was fun to revisit MASH and see that even in 2015, it holds up as one of the best shows I've ever watched.

Very interesting. Thanks for the write up!
 
Very interesting. Thanks for the write up!
Funny enough, Firewall and Iceberg's finale reviews throughout the summer inspired me to watch the show again. I really don't know if we'll ever going to get a sitcom finale on the scale of Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen ever again, if only because no show will ever be big enough to have a 3 hour block dedicated to a finale episode.

And it's also weird that the finale could just work as a movie on its own... it's so sitcomy that you can probably watch that episode without watching anything else and still get the gist of the characters and the show.
 
Huh

http://www.thewrap.com/ryan-murphy-...wal/st_refDomain=t.co&st_refQuery=/VpFqSoGIjr

Based on big delayed viewing numbers, Fox is feeling bullish about “Scream Queens.”

Speaking to TheWrap Sunday, Fox Television Group Chairman and CEO Dana Walden said once Nielsen and multiplatform numbers for seven days of playback are available in two weeks, she expects the show to have earned in delayed viewing an audience comparable in size to what the broadcast premiere drew in live-plus-same day ratings Tuesday night.

“We would be ecstatic with that,” Walden said.

Asked whether, should it meet her seven-day expectations then go on to maintain those numbers with future episodes, “Scream Queens” would be renewable, Walden, who oversees Fox Broadcasting and the company’s television-study operations with colleague Gary Newman, responded, “Absolutely. If it continues to perform this way throughout a measurable period of time — where our advertisers are more inclined now to look at this type of performance, and we’ve got many sponsor partners on this show — this show is beyond viable. This is a show that any network would be happy to have, any streaming service would be happy to have.”
 
That last line sounds like they're trying to line up Netflix or Yahoo or Amazon as a potential safety net already.
 
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