Good Shows, Bad Networks: Another One Bites the Dust

ABC has announced the (inevitable) cancellation of Life On Mars. It was one of the more intriguing TV show premises to come along (even if it was a copy of the British show of the same name), and I have definitely been enjoying it: a New York detective gets hit by a car in 2008 and wakes up in 1973, where he finds himself still in New York and still a detective. Good writing, great cast, and a nostalgic, authentic look to the show thanks to New York location shooting.

Supposedly the show's creators will be able to craft an ending to the show that hopefully will resolve Sam Tyler's time-travel mystery. Forgive me for being skeptical, but ABC hasn't had a good track record with canceled shows recently: Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, Eli Stone. And if you go back a couple of years, ABC also mistreated The Nine and, worse, allowed Invasion to run for a whole season that ended with multiple cliffhangers, then didn't renew it (which, now that I think about it, was certainly a foreshadowing of the current mess).

After their strike-shortened first seasons in the fall of 2007, ABC made a big deal about bringing back Pushing Daisies (which I loved) and Dirty Sexy Money (didn't watch it, but I know others enjoyed its juicy soapiness). Then both shows were yanked off the air a couple of months into this season, along with Eli Stone, which premiered last spring, found a modest audience, and was also renewed. Later ABC announced that all three of these shows had been canceled.

That was about three months ago, though in mid-January ABC did announce that the shows would return this summer to, in the charming parlance of the TV business, "burn off" their remaining episodes. Daisies creator Bryan Fuller, who has gone back to Heroes (where he worked during its first season) to try to resuscitate its recent lackluster performance, was quoted as saying that Daisies' major story lines, which will mostly still be unresolved by the end of the completed episodes, would eventually be concluded in a comic book.

A comic book? Wow, thanks Bryan. That's exactly what I was looking forward to. Look, I know ABC hasn't treated your show and the others the way it should have, but as much as I love Pushing Daisies, I have zero interest in tracking down a comic book. However, if you or the network were to make this comic available to read on the web, say via a Flash player, then I might make the effort to read the end of the story.

But Bryan Fuller isn't really the one to blame here, ABC is. Why go to the trouble of renewing these shows in the first place, only to then cut them off at the knees and then make things worse by mistreating the loyal fans looking for an ending? If a show really bombs and is canceled four or five episodes into its first season, that's one thing, but if a network allows a show a full season, it owes to viewers and producers alike the opportunity for closure, which simply means, if you're not going to invite 'em back, at least have the decency to make the decision known in enough time so the show can provide some answers to the viewers... which isn't going to happen with Pushing Daisies.

As I wrote in a comment in the Boston Globe's TV blog, "It's getting to the point where I will have to think twice about getting invested in a new show if it's going to air on ABC... Memo to ABC: Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives are already past their freshness dates, and eventually, people are going to get tired of the dancing and the nanny and the bachelors and bachelorettes. What will you do then?"