TVSquad

I don't think Drive was an obvious flop - they were trying to create a mythology show like Lost, but with exciting car chases every episode, and starring Nathan Fillion with a generally good ensemble cast (particularly Dylan Baker and Melanie Lynskey). That said, it really didn't work in those few episodes that did air.

The Inside, on the other hand, shouldn't have failed, and shouldn't have been launched in the summer and cancelled after around six episodes. Considering there are so many cop/investigation/procedural shows out there, that Bones became a hit, I think that one genuinely got a raw deal - it deserved a full season to get its footing.

Then again, it's not like Minear hasn't worked on a lot of mediocre shows, too (K-Ville, Standoff).

Ugh. Don't even get me started. The Inside is a classic case of throwing money down a bottomless writer.

Do you know how The Inside started? It was essentially an attempt to remake 21 Jump Street. Rachel Nichols would have starred as an FBI agent posing undercover in a high school. Now, whatever you may think of 21 Jump Street, it was a tried and tested formula that had brought great success in the past, and could potentially have brought success again.

Since Fox scrapes its writers from the bottom of the barrel, the pilot intitially presented with was awful. So they brought on the admittedly less crappy Minear as showrunner to "fix" it, while keeping the same premise.

So of course, he chucked out every single element that had led to Fox greenlighting it in the first place, and replaced it with a crappy procedural with dark elements randomly added in for seemingly no good reason. The only thing the finished product had in common with the show Fox had wanted was the cast.

I personally disagree with the premise that a show that isn't up to standard "deserves" more time because a) it has a lot of competition in the genre and b) another show of the same genre and on the same network has found success. The fact that another, reasonably similar show became a hit where the sub-par show could not is not a point in favor of the sub-par show.

Bones is an example of a procedural that distinguishes itself from it's competition, and of a procedural done right. It's success is not an excuse to prolong another show's failure.