FOX Cancels everything

[JOVE23]

http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/05/11/fox-cancels-everything/



ALL SIMON ALL THE TIME

Fox tonight was the first network to announce some of its 2010-11 pickups and cancellations – mostly cancellations. I don’t think Fox fully deserves its reputation as the evil cancellation-happy network; they’ve stayed with many shows through mediocre or worse ratings. But they’ve definitely decided to clean house this time, except for Fringe, which has already been renewed.



Simon Cowell is taking over the network with The X-Factor, which I greatly fear will be a crushing hit like it is all over the world, and that makes him the Jay Leno of Fox: everything has to go to make room for him. So in order to clear space for Cowell while still picking up some new scripted stuff, the network has canceled virtually all its “bubble” shows:



- Breaking In, which had decent ratings that were, however, heavily inflated by an American Idol lead-in, is gone. This makes Christian Slater’s third straight failed series.

- The Chicago Code is gone, making Shawn Ryan’s second canceled series in a year. This is the really sad one among the cancellations: a good cast and some good writing, plus the Chicago atmosphere (though they said “Chicago” too often). It was a potentially fine 10 o’clock series that had the misfortune of being on a network that doesn’t have any 10 o’clock slots.

- Human Target, after a bad second-season retool, is canceled, another demonstration that the broadcast networks have become puzzlingly bad at doing escapist action fare. USA and TNT do this stuff with relative ease.

- Lie To Me was canceled, and I don’t have much of an opinion on this one, but it hung on for 48 episodes.

- Finally, Fox canceled the comedy Traffic Light, meaning things haven’t been great for U.S. adaptations of Israeli shows - In Treatment bit it earlier this year.



The pickups Fox announced so far include The New Girl, their marquee comedy pilot: written by Liz Meriwether (who just wrote the successful movie No Strings Attached) and starring Zooey Deschanel, I’ve heard it described as kind of a cross between Three’s Company and Family Guy. Damon Wayans Jr. is in it, and as I said, it would be smart strategy on ABC’s part to pick up Happy Endings (apart from the fact that I like that show) since Fox would then have to recast Wayans’ part and spend money to reshoot all his scenes in New Girl.



The other comedy Fox picked up is I Hate My Teenage Daughter, starring Jaime Pressley and Katie Finneran; the fact that it’s a multi-camera show (aka Lowbrow Dinosaur Comedy™) suggests that the format will make more of a comeback this season than it did last season, when Fox and NBC didn’t pick up any such shows. Though if Fox tries to schedule it with a single-camera show it’ll probably wind up stone dead whether it’s good or bad – as Fox executives themselves have said, the two formats no longer go together.



The two drama pickups so far are J.J. Abrams’ Alcatraz and Hart Hanson’s previously-mentioned Bones backdoor pilot The Finder. Both are a bit surprising: rumours were (but you know where the rumours often come from: insiders trying to sell their show or tear down someone else’s) that Fox was more interested in other dramas. But instead Alcatraz is in and a couple of sure-thing pilots are out. The premise sounds like yet another attempt to make a new Lost without understanding what made Lost work – namely that there was an interesting premise to hang onto at first even if you didn’t really care about the big mystery. But you can never tell from a description alone. That goes for all the new shows, obviously.



Finally, a word about why this time of year is exciting to TV geeks: I think part of it is still related to the very compressed schedule that TV pilot pickups run on in the U.S. The pilots are shot, edited, delivered and then accepted or rejected in a very short length of time – sometimes a show may be picked up or turned down the week after it’s shot. The people whose pilots don’t get picked up can move on to other things, look for other jobs, but at least it’s quick, and it’s kind of exciting (if you’re interested in that sort of thing) because the answers come fairly fast. In Canada, where a tremendous amount of time may pass between writing and shooting, shooting and pilot pickup, making the series and airing it, it’s hard to create that kind of energy to the process.

 

[bri]

Besides the animated shows, House is about the only one I watch. I didn't notice it mentioned. They can cancel Bob's Burgers. Could those people be any creepier?

 

[sth]

Besides the animated shows, House is about the only one I watch. I didn't notice it mentioned. They can cancel Bob's Burgers. Could those people be any creepier?

After like 5 of the Bob's Burgers I stopped watching them they were gross. I love Family Guy, The Simpsons, American Dad and the Cleveland show is growing on me.

 

[BigPete]

I was just starting to warm up to the Chicago Code. I have watched every episode but there were so many bullshit ideas going on. A polish cop with brains and bravado? The irish mob? A crooked politician whacking people and they couldn't pin it on him? A nice gal who wanted to be a real bad ass as the top cop? Too many cliches to count...



Breaking in...well I know Christian Slater is more than his previous roles, but did they really expect it to work with him acting like that? He plays dark and brooding very well, not dippy and sappy.



Fox blew it with the Code, the idea of a cop drama in Chicago should have been a boon for them, but they cast poorly, wrote poorly, borrowed themes and plots from other series, and made the show about five lame characters instead of good crime stories like CSI.

 

[bri]

I was just starting to warm up to the Chicago Code. I have watched every episode but there were so many bullshit ideas going on. A polish cop with brains and bravado? The irish mob? A crooked politician whacking people and they couldn't pin it on him? A nice gal who wanted to be a real bad ass as the top cop? Too many cliches to count...



Breaking in...well I know Christian Slater is more than his previous roles, but did they really expect it to work with him acting like that? He plays dark and brooding very well, not dippy and sappy.



Fox blew it with the Code, the idea of a cop drama in Chicago should have been a boon for them, but they cast poorly, wrote poorly, borrowed themes and plots from other series, and made the show about five lame characters instead of good crime stories like CSI.

Polish people can be smart. You have some fine examples of that right here on this board.

 

[roshinaya]

Glad that Fringe got renewed, it will fill my sci-fi fix nicely. However knowing Fox I will be in constant fear that they will axe it midseason and replace it with some shit reality-show.

 

[supraman]

After like 5 of the Bob's Burgers I stopped watching them they were gross. I love Family Guy, The Simpsons, American Dad and the Cleveland show is growing on me.

I watched the 1st episode for Bob's Burgers and 5 minutes into it was pretty sure it sucked. After the whole episode I knew it sucked. Just a Special person show.



Fringe is a great show but they need to use better quality cameras or something on the show. The picture quality on HD is terrible for the show.



Chicago Code was interesting, I think given time the characters would have developed more depth. The show had jack shit to do with crimes, the show was about the cops. Although Southland sets the bars for shows about the cops.



Also will this reality show fad ever fucking just DIE

 

[Ymono37]

Breaking in...well I know Christian Slater is more than his previous roles, but did they really expect it to work with him acting like that? He plays dark and brooding very well, not dippy and sappy.

I really liked this show, but sadly knew it wasn't going to last. I think it had a lot of potential despite the fact that it was basically a comedy version of "Leverage." Plus it had Trevor Moore from WKUK.



I thought Traffic Light was really on it's way to finding a firmer footing and if Fox gave it a chance, I think it would have eventually done well for them. It was a clever show and deserved, in my opinion, at the very least a second season.

 

[Tater]

I watched the 1st episode for Bob's Burgers and 5 minutes into it was pretty sure it sucked. After the whole episode I knew it sucked. Just a Special person show.



Fringe is a great show but they need to use better quality cameras or something on the show. The picture quality on HD is terrible for the show.



Chicago Code was interesting, I think given time the characters would have developed more depth. The show had jack shit to do with crimes, the show was about the cops. Although Southland sets the bars for shows about the cops.



Also will this reality show fad ever fucking just DIE

I second that.

Probably won't happen though. It's so chep to make those shows without the multi-million $ per year "movie stars" to pay.

 

[LaurenNMU]

I am seriously upset that they canceled Lie To Me, easily one of my favorite shows which also won the viewer's choice award for favorite drama or something so wtf and i liked breaking in too i thought it was funny. I am glad they picked up The Finder though

 

[MassHavoc]

I am seriously upset that they canceled Lie To Me, easily one of my favorite shows which also won the viewer's choice award for favorite drama or something so wtf and i liked breaking in too i thought it was funny. I am glad they picked up The Finder though

I was going to respond that Lie To Me was the only show on there that was a shock to me as well. Chicago Code should have been good, but man did they **** that show... I am going to miss lie to me, I really like Tim Roth, especially in that type of antagonistic role.

 

[JOVE23]

I second that.

Probably won't happen though. It's so chep to make those shows without the multi-million $ per year "movie stars" to pay.

This.



Production costs for reality shows are smaller by leaps and bounds compared to conventional shows, ergo more bang for the buck for the networks.



Remember, advertisers are the real customers of TV networks. The networks are selling your eyes to the ads by getting you to watch the shows.