Cleaning House

Many television networks recently decided to clean house of shows receiving poor ratings, poor reviews, and just not doing well. Unfortunately this fate befell many shows that I personally feel just needed more time to take off. You'd think series would pay more attention to the first season so they get a second season and can dive into a deeper story with more character development and more compelling stories, but these shows just didn't do that.

I didn't watch all 17 of the series that were cancelled religiously, but I did see a few episodes of some of the shows. One of the shows was Best Friends Forever. Yes it was sort of a chick flick show, but I really liked the pilot episode. Mainly because they finally put a guy in a role similar to Liz Lemon on 30 Rock. A guy who was just easy going and did his own thing. Someone I identified with. The pilot had me in stitches because a lot of the things the guy on the show would do I do in real life. It was just funny. Then it kind of petered out. Maybe the writing got stale or maybe the premise just wasn't good enough, but I thought this show had some potential to be great!

Another show cancelled from this season was FOX's Alcatraz a weird and somewhat trippy series about time-traveling prisoners of the historic Alcatraz prison. Sounds like an interesting premise, but it ended up feeling almost like an extension of Lost to me. Mainly because Hurley (Jorge Garcia) was one of the main characters and he had to deal with, yet again, time traveling characters and never really understood what was happening.

Harry's Law was a show I actually could have gotten into. Being a fan of Boston Legal this show was in the same vein as that one. Humor and kick-butt lawyering. It was always a fun show to watch and actually did a good job of keeping you on the edge of your seat. Sometimes stretching what should have been one episode into two or more, but it was still a fun show to watch.

Bent was a show unfortunate enough to get a poor time slot. I never got the chance to watch it, but it was pitted against Modern Family and the other shows at the 8:30 timeslot. Almost destined to fail. Which is a little sad because Amanda Peet is a great actress who seems to be trying to break into the television genre, but just hasn't made it through yet.

Among others cancelled (that I didn't watch) were Are You There, Chelsea?, Ringer, Pan Am, Awake, Breaking In, GCB, The Secret Circle, A Gifted Man, Missing, The Finder, I Hate My Teenage Daughter, The Firm, and The River.

Seems that the "The" titles were the big hit (flop) this year. Just an interesting thing to note. With all these cancellations, there is still some great news to report! 30 Rock, Community, and Parks and Recreation are making comebacks in the fall! It may be for shortened seasons (and is 30 Rock's last), but they are bound to be hilarious! If they do well I hope Community and Parks and Rec can get renewed again, but for full seasons!

And while this may be good news, NBC failed. Yet again. Why renew the crap that is Whitney?!?!?! It's AWFUL. No one watches it. No one thinks it's funny. And yet you renew that over Up All Night or even Best Friends Forever. Yeah they both might not be the funniest shows, but I'd watch either one over stupid Whitney and her complaining and annoying voice. Give Community, 30 Rock, and Parks and Recreation (read 'actually hilarious TV shows') full seasons and get rid of that show that no one has heard of and no one watches when both The Middle and Modern Family are on FOX during that time.

Dear NBC. Stop screwing up your great comedy lineup! (You can get rid of The Office now. It's not funny anymore). Listen to the fans and the critics and keep the genuinely funny shows!!