Skip to main content

The Daily Beast: "Lone Star and 10 Other Quickly-Canceled TV Shows"

While the cancellation of FOX's con man drama Lone Star took no one watching the ratings by surprise, some pointed towards the fact that FOX didn't let the show find an audience, axing it after just two low-rated airings.

While such early cancellations might be rare, it doesn't mean that they don't happen. Over at The Daily Beast, I take a look at ten other early cancellations from the last ten years, from Viva Laughlin to reality duds like The Will. (Remember that gem?) You can read my latest feature "10 Most Quickly Axed Shows of the Last 10 Years" here.

(And, before you say it, I know that Wonderland and Girls Club were also canned after two episodes. Couldn't fit everything in there, sadly!)

Also, out of morbid curiosity: do any of the entries on this list ring a bell to you?

Comments

Brad said…
Some of those don't actually seem like bad ideas. The Rich List just looked like a bar argument on Millionaire-steroids. I'm also tempted to watch Viva Laughlin, though I've never heard good things about it.
Addie DeWitt said…
How can you forget SMITH on CBS? Ray Liotta, after years of cajoling by Producers and Studios, finally agrees to do television. Nina Tassler touts it as one of their premiere new series but then suddenly realizes anti-heroes on CBS? Thieves living double lives? What would the Las Vegas audiene say to that! So, one and gone for SMITH. Caused quite the s-storm in the hallway's of a major agency. Nina ducked on this one because SWINGERS that year was an even bigger miss; key parties and adultry in the 1970's... are you kidding me?

Popular posts from this blog

Have a Burning Question for Team Darlton, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, or Michael Emerson?

Lost fans: you don't have to make your way to the island via Ajira Airways in order to ask a question of the creative team or the series' stars. Televisionary is taking questions from fans to put to Lost 's executive producers/showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and stars Matthew Fox ("Jack Shephard"), Evangeline Lilly ("Kate Austen"), and Michael Emerson ("Benjamin Linus") for a series of on-camera interviews taking place this weekend. If you have a specific question for any of the above producers or actors from Lost , please leave it in the comments section below . I'll be accepting questions until midnight PT tonight and, while I can't promise I'll be able to ask any specific inquiry due to the brevity of these on-camera interviews, I am looking for some insightful and thought-provoking questions to add to the mix. So who knows: your burning question might get asked after all.

What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season

In Defense of Downton Abbey (Or, Don't Believe Everything You Read)

The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. Which means, if I can get on my soapbox for a minute, that in order to judge something, one ought to experience it first hand. One can't know how the pudding has turned out until one actually tastes it. I was asked last week--while I was on vacation with my wife--for an interview by a journalist from The Daily Mail, who got in touch to talk to me about PBS' upcoming launch of ITV's period drama Downton Abbey , which stars Hugh Bonneville, Dame Maggie Smith, Dan Stevens, Elizabeth McGovern, and a host of others. (It launches on Sunday evening as part of PBS' Masterpiece Classic ; my advance review of the first season can be read here , while my interview with Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes and stars Dan Stevens and Hugh Bonneville can be read here .) Normally, I would have refused, just based on the fact that I was traveling and wasn't working, but I love Downton Abbey and am so enchanted with the proj