Pretty much agree with you and jay G both on The Nine.

The Nine was the only one of those I gave a chance, and I gave up after three episodes, in which we had seen about the first 15 minutes of a 52 hour hostage situation. I think it MIGHT could have been good if it had a definite ending point...ie, ONE season, 24 episodes, and its over. Watching it, I felt like I was going to have to wait 3-4 years before I saw the end of the standoff...not something I was interested in. I wish the studios would look into that idea more often...you can keep the quality up throughout, plus you might can get some bigger name actors to be willing to sign on for one season that wouldnt sign up for something that might last 4-5 years.

Actually, I think your assessment of Kidnapped and Vanished also applies ot Smith. I really enjoyed Smith, but I think it would have done better theatrically.

But there have already been plenty of good heist films. One thing I liked about Smith was that they still managed to provide a heist a week while also having a continuing storyline. So there was always some instant gratification in watching the show, instead of waiting and waiting for the show to reach the season-long heist the show's been dragging out.

The show actually reminded me of the movie Heat, which is primarily character interaction with a few well executed heist and action scenes, with the fallout from the first heist directly informing the rest of the movie.

Didn't 24 start out as a one-season only affair, which is how they snagged Kiefer Sutherland?

ABC has launched the one-season, 13 episode series Daybreak, which promises to resolve the storyline by the end of it, although they have left open the possibilities of additional seasons with all new storylines, a la 24.

I think Networks just don't like the idea of limited-run shows as much as they like shows that have the potential to be successful for multiple seasons. Developing new shows is expensive, since the networks commission for more pilot scripts then they'll produce, and produce more pilots than they'll pick up for the season. Plus, pilots typically cost more than the rest of the episodes in a series. And after all that they don't know if the shows that they did pick up will even be successful. If they aren't, then they're out millions of dollars and owning episodes of a show that don't even do as well as reruns of another show.

So I understand the networks' desire to stretch out a show as long as possible. The problem is that not every premise is sustainable if stretched for years on end. Heroes is an example of a sustainable premise, since even after all the current Heroes figure out their powers and stop this season's crisis, there's always the potential for new Heroes to be discovered, and new crisis's to be adverted.

I think Smith would have worked better on a channel like FX or TNT, but it was probably too expensive.

FX had already tried a similar show, Thief
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thief_(TV_series)

Got that one right. Most people would rather watch crap than intelligent well written shows.

I would watch these shows if I knew they had a definite end as well. Lost just seems to be meandering without an end. I wish some shows would just go the BBC route with short, finite seasons.

Smith stunk

Kidnapped - It would have been a great show if they made it with each kidnapping lasting 2-3 episodes, but as it is, it just went too long. Too bad because I really liked it.

Justice - Not really funny and not really good. Watched it and there are just so many other alternatives that are better.

The Nine - I enjoy it but now it is to the point that I just want to see the ending. Same goes for Jericho. The difference being that I think they did about as much as they could with The Nine, but they failed to do a lot of things they could have in Jericho.