I have concluded that I have personally killed or mortally wounded every TV show that I adore. Sports fans have their rituals that ensure their team will win, and I have a ritual that ensures a show will stay on the air: don’t watch it.
Here is a list of TV shows that I have single-handedly (with some help from my wife) sent to an early grave:
Reaper
Pushing Daisies
Aliens in America
Arrested Development
Wonderfalls
Clerks the series
Greg the Bunny
Firefly
Dead Like Me
Police Squad (although really, how many more episodes could they have made of this nonsense?)
[Notice that there’s a real pattern here of Fox picking up great, weird cutting edge shows and then canceling them after one or two seasons. It makes me love and hate Fox at the same time].
Freaks and Geeks*
Undeclared*
Futurama*
[although I don’t know how to classify the weird reprieve they’ve gotten in releasing DVDs and a new season]
*Okay, technically I caught these shows on DVD after they were cancelled, and yet, the point remains that I would have loved them if I knew about them.
There’s a few great links of shows that were cancelled before their prime.
Here’s one. And here’s another (this one is right in sync with me).
Shows I am trying to destroy by watching and loving them:
Veronica Mars [UPDATE: I successfully killed this show 5/17/07]
How I Met Your Mother (on life support, show picked up for renewal)
[Actually, as of 2010, the show seems to be doing pretty well, is the curse over?]
Chuck (seems to always be in question)
Shows that I have never watched (and the length of time they have been on the air because I ignored them)
According to Jim (EIGHT seasons!!)
Reba (SIX seasons!)
The King of Queens (NINE!! Seasons)
Girlfriends (EIGHT seasons)
ER (FIFTEEN seasons??!!) (Some reprieve given for the first two or three seasons that were pretty good)
Law and Order and all its variants. (I’ve watched selected episodes in rerun, but come on, does there need to be so many?)
SVU/NCIS other shows with initials in the title (ditto)
American Idol
Survivor
TV 2008-2009
I’m slowly moving the contents of this Tab into individual posts. Click the link to see the full post.
TV Jan 2009
Okay, the TV season is half over, shows got canceled by the networks and also got canceled by us. So, we have pruned ourselves down to just a few shows, mostly sitcoms. The really bad news is that our Canadian satellite is no longer active. Bell Expressvue has kicked us out so we no linger have our access to TV up north. Sigh. Wither Corner Gas?
The Big Bang Theory–We’ve seen a bunch of repeats altely and it is quickly becoming a big hit in the house.
How I Met Your Mother–Coming close to beating The Office
The Office–Still #1
New Adventures of Old Christine–Still funny.
30 Rock–I’m liking more this season, although the adoption subplot is lame.
Chuck–The first show tha I actually missed once the Christmas hiatus started
Robot Chicken. Hilarious puppeteering!
Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job. Possibly the weirdest non-animated show on TV.
Limbo:
Project Runway–Who even knows what will happen to it.
America’s Next Top Model–I’m sure we’ll watch it but at this point we fast forward through 90% of the show.
Bye Bye: We’ve given up on
Pushing Daisies–canceled
Life on Mars-5 queued on Tivo that we never watched
The Mentalist-ditto
Fringe-We wanted to lie it but it never inspired us to press View Now.
TV 2008-2009
With the Fall 2008 Lineup mostly underway, I’m listing the shows that we are giving a chance this year. There are some new ones, but mostly its a continuation of last year:
NEW ADDITION 11/14:
The Big Bang Theory: We watched this lat year and thought it was ok. Reviews say it has gotten better so we are going to give it another chance.
Prime Time Shows:
The Office. Still hilarious.
How I Met Your Mother. Still hilarious. Up there with The Office in terms of consistently funny material.
New Adventures of Old Christine. Continues to be reliably funny. Some tropes are a bit overdone at this point, but Julia Louis Dreyfus is in great form.
30 Rock. Started again this week. Haven’t watched it yet, but Tina Fey gets a pass for her Sarah Palin, so the first few episodes will get less scrutiny from me. That said… the early addition of some many guest stars does not bode well.UPDATE: The Oprah guest spot was very good, so all is forgiven.
Chuck. We found ourselves missing this show over the hiatus. Glad it’s back. The first ep was a bit rocky, but it has picked up in quality with each epsiode. And, hey, Rush was in the latest one we saw!
Pushing Daisies. We’ve watched 2 episodes of this season, and it’s been okay. I miss the manic craziness that seems to be missing in this season. We’ll keep watching just to see what happens, but I can’t imagine this show going much longer than this season, just for plausibility.
The Mentalist. Sarah wanted to watch this, even though we don’t really like “cop” shows. We both agreed that it was quite good. Although we’ve only seem the first episode, we have 2 or 3 Tivo’d, so we’ll see how it goes.
Fringe. We’ve enjoyed a few of these episodes, but we’ve now got 2 or 3 queued up on Tivo as well. Our favorite part is the superimposed letters, and Pacey of course! I’m glad it’s following an X-Files rather than a Lost route, as I don’t want to get sucked into a 4 year TV show.
America’s Next Top Model. Still tuning in, although now we do the show in about 15 minutes, FFing through anything that’s not a photo shoot.
Life on Mars. Really enjoyed the British series. We watched the first episode of the US one, and it was pretty good (if not an exact mimic of the British one). We’ve got to check out the next few to see if it maintains its quality.
The Simpsons. Still funny after all these years.
Canadian Treats:
Corner Gas. Our favorite from Canada is ending this year. Go out with a BANG, Dog River!
The Mercer Report. Still funny.
Robson Arms. Excellently written
Cable highlights:
Project Runway: Enjoyed this season, but concerned for its Lifetime migration.
Robot Chicken. Hilarious puppeteering!
Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job. Possibly the weirdest non-animated show on TV.
UPDATES: SHOWS WE’VE GIVEN UP ON:
90210. We both enjoyed the original of this, and were intrigued about this remake. So far, the nly really interesting storie are with Kelly, and the “what will happen with Dylan” storyarc. It’s been on hiatus for a couple of weeks and I already don’t care anymore, so we’ll see how much longer it lasts. Not long, it turns out.
The Ex List. We’ve enjoyed several episodes of this. Although, really how long can this show stay on the air? They’ve given her a year to find an ex boyfriend. How many could she possible have? The problem is that don’t care at all about her friends, who seem utterly shallow, and their subplots are just annoying. And, I’m not really sure I like Bella very much as she just seems to have bad taste. (And don’t get Sarah started on her wardrobe!). I think it would be better if it were 30 minutes instead of an hour. I guess I was too harsh, it’s been canceled already.
And from last year: RIP: Aliens in America. canceled. My Name is Earl: sorry you lost us last year.
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TV 2007-2008
Down below you’ll see the TV shows that I have killed. It was a sad day when two of my favorite shows were canceled for good last year. However, we move on. And so, this is our current household lineup:
The Simpsons. Despite what the haters say, it’s still funny.
How I Met Your Mother. A solid sitcom, that has been very very good for three years now. A few rocky episodes this season, but still very funny. Suit up!
Aliens in America. A promising sitcom. We tuned in because Luke from the Gilmore Girls is on it, and we stayed because it’s pretty funny. It’s getting a little bogged down in “Raja undermining Justin and then Justin realizing he was wrong” plots, but it’s still very funny. Shame that the parents’ Green Bay accents keep popping up from time time as if they were reminded they had to add them.
Corner Gas. A favorite from Canada. Wonderful small town humor. With footage of beautiful Saskachewan!
The Mercer Report. Another favorite from the North. Would that there were American commentators who had the chutzpah of Mr Mercer. (And, yes we love John Stewart, but there’s something so delightful about the Mercer Report…maybe it’s that he’s only on something like 20 weeks a year!)
Chuck/Reaper: How is it possible that two shows that are almost identical in premise made it on the air at the same time. They even have the same opening credit premise: a name bag that zooms in and fades out (although Chuck’s Nerd Herd opening credits are awesome). After the first few weeks, we were leaning towards Reaper, as we felt that the “Chuck longs for blonde girl and wants out of the CIA” thing was very tired. They seem to have given that up, so phew. But now we’re getting tired of Reaper’s “Sam pines for not blonde girl and wants out of the devil’s business.” We’d like to be able to morph these two shows into one:
From Chuck: Keep Chuck, and the two agents, lose the sister and Gomez, keep some of the Nerd Herd, and of course, keep the Nerd Herd which is an awesome name.
From Reaper: Lose Sam, keep Sock and the other helper. Lose Andi, and definitely keep Ray Wise.
What we’d like is some kind of premise where the devil has implanted the CIA flashbacks to make Chuck solve CIA mysteries, or something like that.
Anyhow, this past week, both shows were fantastic, so maybe they’re hitting their strides now.
America’s Next Top Model. We’re not proud. But in our defense, we do fast forward through all of the talking. TiVo was made for this show, we get through an episode in 20 minutes.
Project Runway/Canada: Even though I don’t care one whit about fashion, I enjoy watching people create things. The Canadian edition is good, except that Iman is just creepy, and she talks too slowly.
My Name is Earl: Really liked the first two seasons, but this new one with him in jail is pretty poor. The list made the show, and that Cops hourlong thing last week was really really bad.
30 Rock: I still think it’s overrated, but it is quite funny. Alec Baldwin gets better and better, but it’s a little too insider-NBC-product placement ha ha for me. I’d like to clean up the show, and get rid of some characters that don’t work so well.
The Office: Best show on TV.
Scrubs: Had 5 great seasons. The whole JD gets a girl pregnant thing, not so great. But it is apparently going out gracefully, so we will continue to watch.
Robson Arms: A great Canadian drama, but I never know when it’s on.
And some we gave up on:
The Big Bang Theory: Happy to see that kid from Roseanne again, but the first epsiode was pretty lame, despite the geek love, and when TiVo forget to tape episode two we took it as a sign.
Carpoolers: We sort of liked the first episode, but I guess not enough. But hey, a Kid in the Hall was involved, so it can’t be that bad right?
Samantha Who? We love Chritina Applegate, but jeez, this show started when, in November? Sorry, our schedule was set by then.
Little Mosque on the Prarie. Another nice show from Canada. I more or less enjoyed the first season, even though it was somewhat Three’s Company “wah waaaah”ish, but then I forgot all about it until I saw and ad for it last night. We may try to put it back into rotation. Maybe.
++++TV I HAVE KILLED++++
I have concluded that I have personally killed or mortally wounded every TV show that I adore. Sports fans have their rituals that ensure their team will win, and I have a ritual that ensures a show will stay on the air: I just can’t watch it.
Here is a list of TV shows that I have single-handedly (with some help from my wife) sent to an early grave:
Arrested Development
Wonderfalls
Freaks and Geeks*
Undeclared*
Futurama*
*Okay, technically I caught these shows on DVD after they were cancelled, and yet, the point remains that I would have loved them if I knew about them.
Shows I am trying to destroy by watching and loving them:
Veronica Mars [UPDATE: I successfully killed this show 5/17/07]
How I Met Your Mother (on life support, show picked up for renewal)
Shows that I have never watched because they suck eggs (and the length of time they have been on the air because I ignored them)
According to Jim (SIX seasons!!)
Reba (SIX seasons!)
The King of Queens (NINE!! Seasons)
Girlfriends (Seven seasons)
ER (THIRTEEN seasons??!!) (Some reprieve given for the first two or three seasons that were pretty good)
6 Responses
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on May 17, 2007 at 12:30 pm | Replysarahsbookjournal
Veronica Mars was just cancelled. We’ve done it again!
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on September 11, 2007 at 9:36 am | ReplyJoan Cornish
I never knew until now (9/10/07) what happened to those wonderful shows. I would like them, and then could never find them again. At last I have someone to blame for this phenomen.
Recently the mother from “Dead like me ?” has been popping up all over the place. A bit part in a movie, the mother of the rapist in Law and Order SUV etc. I caught her for weeks, all the time trying to figure out where I saw her before. I have noticed that the characters she plays are never warm and fuzzy, and she scores 0 on empathy.
Many extra points may be scored if you find a character you have only seen before as a childhood actor. You don’t even have to remember the name of the show or character. Remembering anything is a plus.
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on September 11, 2007 at 9:42 am | ReplyJoan Cornish
Sorry about the spelling error. If I was handwriting this I would just blur the letters in phen etc.
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I thought I was responsible for the end of Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me…good to know I can push the blame to someone else. Well, at least for one of ‘em.
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Swirly Girl, I accept all responsibility for Wonderfalls AND Arrested Development. You may have to shoulder the blame for Dead Like Me though. I’m working really hard on getting How I Met Your Mother and The Office cancelled. I’ve already got the previous seasons on DVD, so I’m doing all I can! Are you to blame for anything else?
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I’m responsible for more band break ups than tv shows ending. Only because I listen to music the way most people watch tv.
Dear, dear, Paul. Correlation is not causation! The ones you like are canceled because you actually have taste, and hardly anyone else does. Which is I guess why TV generally sucks. If only they would put you in charge and ban bad commercials, I might consider watching again…someday.
Au contraire: correlation IS causation (which would be a great name either for a band or a blog).
http://obereed.net/hh/correlation.html