Of Shows in Trouble

Alright I feel completely lousy, so I aim just to make this a bit short.

Umm television is fucked. Completely. Today I've seen that three of my favourite shows are in trouble (one of which hasn't even aired yet!!!).

Alright those three shows are Pushing Daisies, Dollhouse and Terminator. As you may know I love Pushing Daisies, Terminator is a great TV version of the movies (it's better than Terminator 3) and Dollhouse is the latest show from the genius that is Joss Whedon. If you don't know him, where have you bin for the past decade? Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dr. Horrible, Serenity and Toy Story. Joss Whedon is a living legend.

Right now about them being in trouble. I've already posted that Pushing Daisies needs help, and by help I mean like a miracle, a real deus ex machina. Pushing Daisises is on its last legs. We might get 22 episodes (that's a full season) but that's only if you include the first season. It's going to be almost impossible to get another 9 to finish Season 2 let alone a third season. So whilst the show looks to be getting increasingly awesome over the next few weeks (Emerson's daughter, Randy Mann, Gina Torres, Ned's brothers, Chuck's dad and some Norwegians are all involved) it will probably end with the 13th episode of Season 2. Whilst this was supposed to be a two parter culminating in episode 14, due to no more episodes not being picked up by ABC (they make Lost) 13 might have to act as a de facto finale for the show (unless Mr. Fuller wouldn't mind making a movie to finish the show? (God how sad is it that I'm already asking for a movie when the show isn't even dead yet?))

However this might actually mean good news. Yup if Pushing Daisies dies, Heroes gets good again. Odd as it may sound it's true. Bryan Fuller creator of Pushing Daisies was a writer on Season 1 of Heroes and wrote the awesome Company Man and was also the writer who dealt with Claire back in Season 1 (remember when she was an interesting character?) If Daisies dies Fuller has said that he is going to go back to Heroes, he might not work full time on the show but at least it will mean that show will get a competent writer. No offense to Tim Kring, Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander but you really need to step up game, especially because two of you worked on Lost!! (although they didn't exactly write any episodes or prove themselves like Lindelof, Cuse, Vaughan or Goddard have). So with Bryan Fuller back on board who knows Heroes might finally get awesome again (woah deja vu)

Next up is Terminator. This show actually is in the least amount of trouble of the three. Its been picked up for a full season (22 episodes) and is being moved to a day where it's not expected to maintain a high level of ratings, and since the viewership of this sort of show is going to be quite loyal you can expect that it might actually hold onto some its viewers. However the bad news is that the night is Friday night (remember this in America) and it's not a night known to cultivate massive success. Unless of course you count the X-Files. So we may be saying goodbye to Terminator in May (which is a shame because Summer Glau (Firefly/Serenity) is now officially the longest serving Terminator with more screen time that Arnie got as the character).

Finally, and this is the one that hurts the most, Dollhouse. Joss Whedon makes great stuff. Anything he makes is guaranteed to have a rabid fan base. The problem is, is that his shows don't "appeal" to the masses. And yet the masses could easily love them if they watched it. Buffy is massively popular, not just with geeks but with so many people. It's like Lost, that show should only appeal to a group of geeks who love sci-fi and yet because of cool and interesting characters the show is a mainstream success. It's why Britain is a place where sci-fi is generally accepted. Doctor Who is a national phenomenon, Life on Mars is a critical success, theres a slot on BBC called the "Buffy" slot and Heroes has been picked up for lifetime rights by the biggest broadcaster in the UK. All these shows have a sci-fi theme. Yet they enjoy success in Britain, success that isn't normally seen across the pond. For some reason America can't get beyond stereotypes when it comes to genre television. Battlestar Gallactica is not the same as the original 70s version, it's in fact a massively political show with interesting and developed characters. So many great genre shows have died, such as Firefly (another Whedon show) due to America just not watching. And yet they would enjoy it. Lost is going to make six years and X-Files made it nine. Both of these shows are inherently genre and lasted for a good few years. Yet Dollhouse (which I'm almost positive will be awesome) will only make it 13 episodes. It's being aired in a the Friday night death slot just like Firefly did and look what happened to that? 14 episodes and dead. At least we're guaranteed to make it to 13 and it'll make an awesome DVD. Damn I'm really depressed now.

Sources:

Bryan Fuller to go back to Heroes
Terminator and Dollhouse on Friday Nights