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I said this on July 3rd:Always listen to Uncle Tim. The network just informed me that the dance show is going to be expanded and that no more episodes of "The Inside" will now air.

Which means there will be six unaired original episodes.

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In test audiences, no one had any problem with her credibility. If you look at what we did initially and what we shot, it was my decision and my choice to do a story about a character that has no inside. The arc of the show is her trying to figure out who she is. It’s about identity and trying to become a person. She’s not this fully formed person. She’s emotionally retarded in some levels and that’s a choice. It may be a bad choice. People who have followed the show, a lot of people had that opinion and have revised that opinion and have seen her a little bit, and they’re like “oh, she’s doing that on purpose.” Her not making eye contact, her flat delivery sometimes, that’s all on purpose and when you see all 13 put together you’ll really notice it.

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Minear Feels 'Inside' Must Die to Live Again

"We're off forever," declares Tim Minear, executive producer of the FOX crime-noir drama "The Inside." "I predicted on July 3 that there would be six unaired episodes, and there are six unaired episodes."

"The Inside" had a long history before it ever hit the air on June 8. It began as a "21 Jump Street"-style tale of an undercover FBI agent (Rachel Nichols) in high school. When that didn't work out, Minear and pal Howard Gordon ("24"), who'd previously teamed on the short-lived 1999 ABC science-fiction series "Strange World," reworked the idea, turning Nichols' character into a former childhood kidnap victim who parlays her unique insight into investigating serial murder and other heinous crimes.

"I've got two unaired pilots," Minear says. "One of them is the original '21 Jump Street' version. The second one is the first attempt at shooting my script, which we then went back and reshot."
The show wasn't ready for a March launch, and after that, options began to dwindle. Peter Ligouri came over to FOX from FX to replace the departing entertainment chief Gail Berman, and decided to launch "The Inside" as a summer thriller.

"They didn't have time to launch a show," Minear says. "You can launch a procedural in the summer -- TNT proved it. But they knew that 'The Closer' was going to air months before it did, as opposed to weeks, so they had billboards and bus-stop posters. I never watch TNT, and I was completely aware of 'The Closer.' If you didn't watch FOX and didn't see the promos on FOX, you never heard of 'The Inside'. But I don't know what else they could have done with it."

Then there was a little show called "Dancing with the Stars," which aired across from "The Inside" on ABC, on Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET. It turned into a runaway hit. Just about the time that was done, on July 20, FOX premiered its twinkletoed show, "So You Think You Can Dance," on Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET.

The two-hour premiere knocked "The Inside" off the schedule that week, and the show's sudden ratings success encouraged FOX to supersize a couple of subsequent one-hour episodes to 90 minutes.

With no 10 p.m. slot to move to, "The Inside" was left out in the cold.

"We thought the dancing show on ABC was going to kill us," Minear says. "Actually, it was the dancing show on FOX that did."

"The Inside" could theoretically return at some point -- although Nichols' addition to the cast of "Alias" torpedoes future episodes being produced -- but Minear's not so sure he wants it to.

"They kept saying they were going to air them all," he says. "Finally I actually called them and said, 'Could you not? Would it be OK if you just didn't air them all?' I was looking toward the future and a hopeful DVD release. It just felt to me that [having unaired episodes] would make it more valuable to the studio.

"They, of course, did not agree to that."

This is not new territory for Minear, who was executive producer (with creator Joss Whedon) of "Firefly," and executive producer (with creator Bryan Fuller) of "Wonderfalls," both of which were axed by FOX only to find new life as 13-episode DVD sets.

"I already am the king of DVD," Minear says. "I'm trying to convince the studio that it would be a wise move to release 'The Inside' and 'Strange World' as one set, since Howard and I did both of those shows."

"I love that concept," Gordon says. "I'm honored to be included in Tim's company. But 'Strange World' was a couple of years ago, and even when it was out, it was fairly anonymous. I think it's a very nostalgic and forgiving inclusion."

In retrospect, Minear feels that "The Inside" may have been a bit dark for network primetime, especially since it wasn't cloaked in the fantasy and sci-fi elements that dominated his earlier efforts, such as "Firefly" and The WB's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" spin-off, "Angel."

"There's no question that 'Angel' is darker than 'The Inside,'" Minear says, "but because it was fantasy, it buffered it somehow. On the other hand, I would say that the thing that [co-executive producer] Craig Silverstein and I were doing wasn't realistic cop stuff. It was very hyper-real, very melodramatic, very Douglas Sirk-ian."

Asked if Gordon has sought his services for the new season of "24," Minear says, "God, no. He knows better than that. I'm a creator; I'm not going to carry water for somebody. Plus, I wouldn't make any more money, and it'd be a lot of work."

Minear has a couple of ideas he's pitching for fall, one in the fantasy genre and one not. Although he's had a rocky road so far, it doesn't get him down.

"I take it in stride," he says. "They give me $50 million to make 13 episodes, so I got to do a space Western, a whimsical comedy and an abyss-staring noir. I get to do whatever I want. There's something nice about doing these 13-episode, limited series things.

"Which is not to say that I don't want to create my 'Buffy' or my 'X-Files' or something that's going to resonate with a larger audience and be on for a long time. But what I love about TV is the way it's like a novel. You want to explore different chapters."

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