Living. Blogging.
Proof that in the ratings war, cult faves will still get the axe.
ABC has announced that it will be cancelling shows Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money and Eli Stone. The network has told the respective producers of the shows that no new episodes will be ordered. Although the network has intimated that it may order new episodes in the future this possibility is highly unlikely.
NBC has decided to axe two shows from its roster. These are the freshman series My Own Worst Enemy starring Christian Slater and the second seasoner Lipstick Jungle.
The reasons for the cancellation are the low ratings the two shows have experienced in the past few weeks. Enemy will film its ninth and final episode while Lipstick has already delivered its whole 13 episode order.
Long-running sketch show and SNL copycat MADtv will end at its 14th season.
Fox recently confirmed the news about the cancellation. The current members of the cast are Arden Myrin, Bobby Lee, Crista Flanagan, Keegan-Michael Key, Nicole Parker and Johnny Sanchez.
The reason for the cancellation was the show’s failure to boost rations during the presidential campaign, a period when SNL also started posting its best ratings in years.
Syfy has officially pulled the plug on the third (and last?) Stargate series, Stargate Universe. Currently only half of the show’s second season has aired, and in typical Syfy fashion, the network will burn off the final 10 episodes sometime next Spring.
Following lower-than-hoped-for ratings, Syfy opted not to renew the show for a third season.
Maybe Syfy would get better ratings if they’d quit jerking fans around with their shows’ air schedules. Viewers are often left scratching their heads when Syfy’s original programs find their seasons halved, with the second half of a season assigned an unspecified air date that’s months or even a year or more (*cough* Battlestar Galactica) after the first half was shown.
Now that AMC has entered the “original scripted series” landscape, the cable network has been put in the difficult position of having to cancel a show for the first time ever. Rubicon is the unfortunate victim, having been undone by extremely poor ratings.
Rubicon had a strong premise in the tale of a man who stumbles upon a conspiracy involving a secret fourth arm of the U.S. government, and a great cast that included the likes of James Badge Dale and Miranda Richardson. So what went wrong? Why couldn’t a show with so much promise find an audience?
I see a few different factors to blame. Most prominent among them: critics who constantly cited the “sleepy,” “slow-moving” nature of the show. Anytime we viewers hear the word “conspiracy,” we think of suspense and excitement, but Rubicon didn’t seem to have enough of either to suit viewers’ appetites. There’s also its Sunday-at-9:p.m. timeslot, which was fine for a while, but after The Walking Dead settled into the 10:p.m. slot, it probably proved an eye-opening contrast between the low-rated Rubicon and the mega-hit that followed it.