PenguinJoe

Don't Trust The B in APT 23 is really funny, we watch the reruns on Netflix all the time and I have no idea why it didn't work, it's much better than the new show James Van Der Beek is in.

Also, a few night ago HBO Comedy reran "Mind of The Married Man" great show, very well written, can't believe it was dumped after 2 seasons.

FerrisDaw

what do you mean with that? futurama is all over the place in germany

Tom Banjo

Gotta love how the comments about FOX are still relevant despite this being an 11-yr thread bump.

Xiroteus

I enjoyed the concept however a show like that would have ran better with shorter seasons, being a maxi series or having a tighter story. It self like they were padding it quite a bit just to have a cliffhanger.

wendersfan

But it's always sad when you see das' posts, get excited, then realize it's from a decade (or more) ago...

spainlinx0

I always think the same thing. What the hell ever happened to that guy? I started watching so many shows thanks to him.

Crocker Jarmen

HBO's Luck. Amazing cast, unique setting, but it was supposedly too slow. I thought cable was supposed to be a place for "slow" shoes to thrive. Audiences get into stuff like Mad Men that is very dry, they can rally around complicated and confusing shows like Game of Thrones, or a non-traditional police show like True Detective I wonder why Luck failed to connect with an audience.

uberjoe

Didn't HBO cancel Luck because they couldn't seem to film it without killing a bunch of horses?

DJariya

Yes, they were already shooting the second season when they changed their minds and canned it. I believe they shot 2 or 3 episodes that will never be seen.

Crocker Jarmen

[conspiracy theorist]After reading interviews with Milch and Mann, I'm convinced the horse accidents were not unique and were used by HBO as an excuse to save face, the cancellation was really motivated by low-ratings[/conspiracy theorist]

But, you're right. That sounds unlikely considering they were in the midst of shooting a second season.

However, I feel if the show had been drawing good numbers, HBO would have worked out a solution to keep the show going. There must be a bazillion hours of horse race footage already existing they could have worked with.

andicus

Well, if we want to go with shows that should have lasted longer, I'd say:

My So Called Life
Freaks and Geeks
Undeclared
Millennium
Mind of the Married Man (Ok, I'm probably the only one that actually liked this one)
Carnivale
Deadwood
Swingtown
Boss

UK series, Starlings - with Brendan Coyle (Downton Abbey) and Matt King (Super Hans from Peep Show)


Just typing that list makes me angry, when considering how much absolute shit there is on TV.

Decker

Thanks for bumping this thread. Fun memories, and it's nice to revisit my dreaded "Murder One round table" story.

I still have no idea why Happy Endings didn't survive or take off. It was SO damn funny. It had a lot in common with Scrubs (including actress Eliza Coupe) and that show lasted way, way longer -- longer than it should have, actually. This show was brilliant and I still can't believe it never became popular. Wish they would have just parked it after Modern Family and just waited. Nothing else ever worked with that great lead-in, so why not at least put a fantastic show in the slot and hope that the public eventually will figure it out -- the "Parks & Recreation" strategy.

PhantomStranger

Skeet Ulrich's Miracles. It got terrible ratings since most were paying attention to the American invasion of Iraq at the time. Think a religious version of the X-Files. The entire series is available on DVD and still worth watching.

jjcool

I still can't figure out what happened to Happy Endings. That was canceled, yet we still get dreck like Mixology on the air.
I remember Murder one fondly. I also remember Boomtown, Journeyman, and Life as being too shortlived for my tastes.

writer106

I have enjoyed reading this thread. Journeyman was a great show, yes it had a Quantum Leap type vibe, but I really liked it and the EP did reveal some of the plans he had in an interview after the show got canned. There was a show called Point Pleasant on FOX, it was a supernatural show similar to American Gothic. It wasn't extremely great, but it had potential. I agree with a previous poster on Carnivale and My So Called Life. I can't remember, but I remember there was network drama with My So Called Life.

I didn't watch Miracles when it originally aired. I watched a few years ago when a relative lent me the DVD set. Another show that should have lasted longer was Miss Guided which starred Judy Greer as a high school guidance counselor. That show suffered partially because of the 2007 Writer's Strike.

Paff

Two Guys and a Girl was a great show, although it's not a mystery why it didn't work.

There was the initial title of Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place. They retooled it a bit, lost some main characters. I think David Ogden Stiers was a regular who always imagined he was a famous character from a movie, a different movie each week.
Then they added more characters (making the title of the show completely moot), until it was six 20-somethings living in Boston, three male three female. Basically, a Boston Friends.
Finally, none of the characters were particularly likeable (the Seinfeld influence)

But it was funny as hell. Ryan Reynolds had great comedic timing, and it was one of the first major roles for Nathan Fillion. Once it finally found its footing and direction, it was cancelled.

Michael Corvin

I liked Two Guys, A Girl... but they retooled it way more often than they should have. They didn't know what the hell to do with it. Nothing really surprising in why it was canceled.

PenguinJoe

I'm actually sort of glad Freaks and Geeks was canceled, the show produced so much talent that went on to bigger things. The only bad thing is we indirectly got Jonah Hill.

Matthew Chmiel

Jonah Hill was never on Apatow's television shows.

If Freaks and Geeks or Undeclared were never cancelled, we would've never seen The 40-Year-Old Virgin in which Apatow met a then unknown Hill and put him a bit part. The rest is history.

In regards to the HBO shows being thrown around in this thread, I want to ask: how the fuck is The Comeback getting a six-episode second season?

JasonF

Lisa Kudrow probably has blackmail pictures on an HBO exec, but I like to think this is just presaging the return of Deadwood and Carnivale.

In terms of shows cancelled too soon (besides Deadwood and Carnivale), I'll put Better Off Ted on the table.

PenguinJoe

You notice how I said "indirectly" right? Apatow said Hill was friends with Rogan and Segal and he just decided to start putting him in their movies. So "indirectly". I know he was never on the shows.

UAIOE

I don't understand the decision makers at ABC. They ditched "Happy Endings" on Sunday nights to die, and they moved "The Neighbors" to Friday after that "by the numbers" Tim Allen show. Yet, graced us with "Mixology" and "Super Fun Night".

Not surprisingly, "Happy Endings" & "The Neighbors" are both shows where I've said out loud "Why does ABC hate this show?"

bluetoast

What's interesting is that the guys (well, a select few) of Undeclared and Freaks and Geeks have continued to work with Apatow, but the women...Monica Keena was Period Blood Girl in Superbad and that's it. Cardellini, Philips, every other woman hasn't shown up at all to my knowledge. Also weird that Charlie Hunnum and Apatow haven't done anything, since he was a major character in Undeclared. He's busy with Sons of Anarchy but that's curious too.

ATX

since someone brought up Point Pleasant (FOX)

how bout that show Reunion (FOX)...i dont remember why they cancelled it and didnt officially air the last few eps

writer106

I like Better Off Ted.

I forgot about Reunion. I watched that show when it aired. I like the premise of the show and yeah some of the acting wasn't great. That show suffered partially because of FOX's scheduling. I recall the first episodes aired right before the World Series and then something happened later on due to a Presdential address and an episode aired the next day. I also remember that Prison Break started that same year and FOX promoted that more than Reunion.

I believe 13 episodes of Reunion were filmed, but only nine were aired by FOX. The ratings were low. A few other countries aired all 13 episodes and in one country, at the end of the 13th episode there was some narration that revealed what the writers were planning for the end. The EP of that show later confirmed in an interview about who was going to be revealed as the killer. The EP also said that he shopped around the Reunion pilot to other network but FOX was the only one interested in it.