As you all know by now, ABC failed to pick up three of its sophomore shows -- Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, and Eli Stone -- for a full season, essentially ending each after 13 second-season episodes (in other ABC news, Scrubs will start on Tuesday, January 6, and Life on Mars gets four additional episodes for its new post-Lost timeslot, which starts on January 28).Daisies and DSM (and Private Practice, which is being moved to Thursdays after Grey's Anatomy in the "duh" move of the season) were both held back after the writers' strike last year and didn't come back until the fall. Seems like a logical thing to do, right? I mean, the shows had growing followings but still very modest ratings. ABC learned from the CBS Jericho disaster that holding a freshman show for any period of time will sink the ratings. Turns out, though, that holding them for even longer will sink the ratings even further. Who knew?
All sarcasm aside, though, ABC was in a tough spot. What could they have done differently? More thoughts after the jump.
The logic really did seem sound at the time; let the shows retool and come back fresh and strong the next season. NBC did the same thing with Chuck, and the show came back stronger than ever (though its ratings are only now starting to become respectable after being in the toilet to start the season). But here's the problem: both Daisies and DSM -- and, to a lesser extent, Eli Stone -- were both very dependent on quick-moving and complicated storylines. Heck, just explaining the rules behind Ned's power to bring people back to life takes an episode all by itself. As much as these creators thought that they could "reset" and pick up new viewers who never saw the first season, they were wrong.
Daisies' season premiere contained a very long throat-clearing segment, for instance, where Jim Dale explained Ned's "gift" and his attraction to Chuck. But in no way did it convey the chemistry that the adult Ned and Chuck had, which was one of the more attractive elements to the show's first season. So, new viewers were plunged into this odd world of beehives and pies, and tiny singing waitresses and agoraphobics with eye patches. I'm sure that new viewers had so many questions that they decided to drop out after awhile.
DSM, on the other hand, did a slightly better job at getting new viewers up to speed. But, its audience in its first season wasn't that big to begin with, and with economic disaster looming, people might not have wanted to see rich people misbehaving week after week.
But would either show have benefited from a summer run of repeats? Remember, more than ten months passed between new episodes of each show; it's not inconceivable that a summer set of reruns would have reminded people that the show existed and caught people up. Yes, reruns of dramatic shows rarely do well. But in this case, they probably could have made an exception. Reruns are what gave Everybody Loves Raymond the boost it needed after a low-rated first season, and reruns played a part in growing Grey's after its first year, when it was merely well-watched instead of the blockbuster it is now.
What do you folks think could have saved ABC's sophomore shows? Or do you think they were just brought back because the network didn't have anything better? Let me know in the comments.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
11-21-2008 @ 12:19PM
Lynn said...
I definitely think ABC did nothing to help promote DSM after the strike and feel that something more should have been done. Either rerunning season 1 during the summer or some kind of "recap" would have helped out a lot. I am just sick that ABC is canceling DSM! This was my favorite show on TV. All they seem to give us are reality shows which I am so tired of. I had just noticed a month ago that most of the shows I currently watch are on ABC but that may change now they are cancelling my favorite.
ABC, BRING BACK DIRTY SEXY MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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11-21-2008 @ 1:13PM
Robin White said...
Yes, bring back quality shows even if they don't make much money for the greedy people out there. We need quality as well as the standard crap that we get in such large quantity. What would it take for the TV networks, these users of the public air space to actually listen to viewers?
11-21-2008 @ 2:17PM
john g said...
Yes I really liked this show the first season, but the
writing didn't seem as sharp this year. I think they focused on the wrong characetrs! Should have been
more of "Carmalita" and "Patricks" story line. What
happened to Jermey's sister !!
11-21-2008 @ 2:38PM
bananna3 said...
I am a fan of all three of these shows and I'm sad that the powers that be at ABC can't give them one more season! How do they expect to build a fan base or any sort of following after the writer's strike? These shows need the time to develop! I'm sick of reality TV and I've had enough of CSI type shows. These were refreshing, extremely well-acted programs. ABC really dropped the ball on this! Is it too late for complaints and petitions? ABC please reconsider these cancellations!!!
11-21-2008 @ 4:02PM
CindyRott said...
Lynn, I so agree with you. It is my fav,fav show and it just sickens me to have this cancelled and they bring back Acording to Jim. Tv is crap anyways, so know I guess I will have to stop watching ABC alltogether. Maybe we should all stop watching ABC and then they will really feel the pain!
11-24-2008 @ 12:45PM
Hashbrown Hunter said...
DSM was nothing more than a glorified soap opera...but damn was it fun to watch! I think it just hit me that this is probably one of my favorites on TV right now.
And the funniest thing is that DSM probably had the biggest range of appeal compared to Pushing Daisies and Eli Stone.
(To Eli Stone I say: good riddance)
12-01-2008 @ 6:39PM
judi said...
Once again these idiots at networks think they know what we want to watch. Reality - NO Way!! Enough already. DSM and ELI are such fun shows and very entertaining. Isn't that what tv is supposed to be? Somebody please stop these know-it-all tv execs.
11-21-2008 @ 12:19PM
MacGuffin said...
I really liked (past tense) Dirty Sexy Money. But it completely lost its mojo this season.
Too bad, because it's a terrific cast and cool idea.
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11-21-2008 @ 12:35PM
Anthony said...
I agree completely with you on DSM and also think the same exact thing about Pushing Daisies this season. I think if the writer's strike didn't happen and these shows had a 23 episode season last year, they both would have been canceled after that anyway.
11-21-2008 @ 7:49PM
Jennifer said...
In the case of DSM, someone got the bright idea to retool it and make it more "soapy" and to make certain characters more asshole. I can't say I was too thrilled with that.
11-21-2008 @ 12:32PM
tingrin87 said...
i liked (once again, past tense) Daisies. but it definitely lost something this season.
Eli Stone, on the other hand, is still an amazing show... one of the few shows i'll watch same night
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11-21-2008 @ 12:43PM
Dina said...
I love Eli Stone. I am so upset!
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11-21-2008 @ 4:51PM
Toni said...
Eli was canceled??????????Oh no. What reason was this canceled? It was a well written, great acting show. What can be done to stop the cancellation?
11-21-2008 @ 12:43PM
Key Rick said...
I'm almost speechless Pushing Daisies is a goner. Any hope a cable network might step in and rescue it? Yes, summer reruns would have reminded/built-up viewership, but noooooo...ABC had to air stellar reality "entertainment" like that awful Who Wants To Be A Japanese Television Star or some such garbage
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11-21-2008 @ 12:45PM
Kimberly said...
Eli Stone is a wonderful show with wonderful messages it is a shame that they don't try more to keep it on the air! I am still missing Men in Trees and don't watch much on abc except I will watch Scrubs.
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11-21-2008 @ 12:52PM
Jo said...
Dirty Sexy Money is great. It gives even the poorest of us a look into the "TV lives" of rich people. Afterall, TV is used as an escape for us, so the plot line does not need to be worthy of a Dicken's novel!
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11-21-2008 @ 12:54PM
Melly said...
I thought DSM was good from the beginning. It is hard to have great ratings when you are up against a proven show already. Maybe having a well know person to guess star every now and then would help. I loved the show.
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11-21-2008 @ 12:57PM
maestro610 said...
I think that in the case of Pushing Daisies ABC needed to play the episodes in summer reruns as well as purposefully lead people to ABC.com where they could watch the entire first season at their leisure.
Unlike Lost, which is the most complicated show on television and gets to keep its entire run online, they had only episodes 6 and 7 online for a long time, so when I tried to get people into Daisies they couldn't find the opening eps.
DSM on the other hand needed promotion. Unless it was about to come on I don't think I saw any real promos for the show and this is a series featuring Donald Sutherland.
More important than either of those maneuvers would be votes of confidence from the network after the strike. All they had to do to gain viewers would be announce that the shows are getting full schedules at the beginning of the season. That way you don't get the effect of viewers who've been burned before running away from shows they know may get cancelled.
Anyway, I don't think the networks have learned anything... Life on Mars is taking 2 months off until sometime next January so I hope those writers are prepared to finish that show up soon. ABC will think that Lost as a lead in is the only promotion it needs and be surprised when it loses all of its viewers.
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11-21-2008 @ 12:59PM
JJ Forde said...
I never understood why the refused to do repeats. I am depressed that PD is gone, especially with the alleged cliff hanger (the least the could do would be to give the show enough money to reshoot and ending). These shows had class and quality but unfortunately in an age of cookie cutter CSIs and reality TV they couldn't pull people in. So while I am all for sending pies to ABC we should at least be thankful they gave them a second try even if it did lack real support.
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11-21-2008 @ 1:01PM
htchkr said...
I am a fan of both Daisies and Eli, but I felt that they had both lost something this year. Some, but not all, of the fun from last year was there.
I knew from the first episode that Daisies would be lucky to last two seasons just because of the level of writing necessary to get all the fast paced word play in each episode. I don't think they ever got it right this season, but I still watched because of I was never sure exactly what was going to happen, which is a rarity in television today. The plots may have been a little simplistic, but the plot twist were a delightful surprise.
I liked Eli because he was the kind of person I would like to believe I could be if I was a lawyer. That and over the top musical visions were just to much fun to watch.
It was fun while it lasted, but now I know there won't be any more chances taken in programming for another five years...and that's what bothers me the most. The networks will point to these shows and say no one wants to watch creative and new shows, so lets add five more reality shows about annoying people acting badly.
Now back to the uninspired crap that is the rest of television.
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