Saturday, May 11, 2013

It's TV Cancellation Time!


This is the time of the year when the big old American networks cancel all those series that just aren't working.
For NBC and ABC it's been tough seasons. For CBS riding high in the ratings there's some pressure to prune old shows that might nose dive any season.
Next week there are the upfronts in New York city with all those bright new series.
Most of NBC's schedule tanked and the cancellations are huge: Whitney is gone (hurray!) plus  Matthew Perry's flabby sitcom Go On, 1600 Penn and the weekly anemic Brian Williams news mag  Rock Center. And Happy Endings is gone, the sole NBC sitcom I liked.
Trouble is that much house cleaning deprives NBC of any building blocks to future success.
The New Normal seemed to be the only freshman sitcom to survive hardly a vote of confidence in the NBC creative team. And then late last night The New Normal got bounced, too. It was a much heralded recreation by Ryan Murphy of Glee.
NBC's sole new hit: The Voice.
Bad news for NBC comes in the departure of the new series The Family Guide.
NBC picked up a spin-off of the semi-hit Fire Hunks called predictably Police Hunks.
And NBC has finally cancelled Smash which was enjoyable melodrama the first season. Then it got cleaned up with the best characters disappearing and became boring and predictable.
Smash was a personal favorite of NBC  entertainment head Bob Goldblatt who even hired the second team to revap it.
Moving the series to Saturday nights marked the death of that one.
CBS has finally decided not to renews CSI:NY for a 10th season. The series had an abbreviated run with only 17 new episodes this year.
However flagship CSI will be right back at it this fall.
CBS says it reluctantly cancelled two new series: Vegas which started hotly and then petered out plus Golden Boy which was expected to be a breakout hit.
Also gone is the workhorse sitcom Rules Of Engagement which was plopped into holes in the schedule but never got strong ratings.
ABC's already dumped series include 666 Park Avenue (which I liked), Private Pracrtice, Zero Hour and Last Resort.
And ABC has now sent out pink slips to Body Of Proof with Dana Delany, How To Live with Your Parents, Malibu County with Reba McEntire and Red Widow.
Season winner CBS has picked up four new sitcoms: the Anna Faris show Mom about a  newly sober gal living in the Napa Valley.
Then there's Will Arnett in The Millers. Another is called We Are Men --details to follow.The one that seems hopeful has Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar in Crazy Ones.
Josh Holloway has a new CBS drama called Intelligence about a man with a computer brain.  Another CBS drama Hostages stars Toni Collette and Dylan McDermott.
That's all I know so far.


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