Bloody Thursday — Over Dozen US Series Canceled!

Cohen

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Roswell, New Mexico and In the Dark Among 6 (!) Series Cancelled at CW




Multiple shows across major US networks were canceled today! I knew with Upfronts coming up next week we should hear about some of the “bubble shows” but MAN I was not expecting such an onslaught of murdered shows.

Personally, I will miss Roswell, NM and Charmed, as I had been enjoying these (less than stellar) reboots of some of my favorite 90s jams, but I don’t think any of the shows canceled really surprised me. Except for Magnum PI, but only because the cast seemed certain for a renewal.

And while I love Sophia Bush, another medical drama just couldn’t really last when there’s a literal sea of medical shows on US tv screens right now.

What are your thoughts? Will you miss any of these shows, or other recent cancellations?
 
I think Naomi got hit too, which isn’t surprising. That show had 0 marketing and looked (from the trailers) like it was made with five bucks and a home video camera. I had read elsewhere that the CW was underperforming for quite some time. If that’s true, I’m not too shocked their programs are getting the axe.

I think the really unfortunate thing about content and shows today is that so much money is dumped into them that poor public reception is more of an incentive to cancel than it is to improve. Really just think about it for a minute. The Office (US) and Parks and Rec, two massively popular shows, both started off with rough seasons. Heck, even Buffy had issues in that first season. Before the stream-pocalypse, shows would get additional seasons to improve on those issues. Now though, they’re just given the boot. Really sad for creative teams, and what sucks is seeing mediocre/poor things with established IPs like Picard get 3 seasons, but other shows that are starting and coming in with no name brand recognition get treated way harder and companies are much less lenient with them. 🙁
 
Plasma
Plasma
Maybe the CW is folding into something else? That Discovery merger may have some part in this.
Thanks for the info! I'm surprised La Brea will be back. It had a promising concept, but needed much better writing, IMO. Maybe they'll get some next season. Otherwise, it looks like only one show I watched was cancelled (Queens), and one is ending (This is Us). I'm so glad Ghosts is renewed. I don't watch many sitcoms, but I loved that show.

The networks must have a lot of confidence in their planned new offerings, if they're clearing this much of the schedule! I'm interested in a promised update of Quantum Leap.
 
I wonder if we’ll hear news about that Babylon 5 reboot getting cancelled soon. That was supposed to be a CW show, but with the new leadership clearing house, I’m curious to see what will happen with that.

Sci-fi shows are usually the first to get the axe due to their large budgets
 
The CW is being sold off, likely to Nextar, which is why they axed so many shows.

Nextar is likely to move the network towards a significantly older demographic, just as they did when they bought WGN and turned it into another conservative news network.
 
I think the really unfortunate thing about content and shows today is that so much money is dumped into them that poor public reception is more of an incentive to cancel than it is to improve. Really just think about it for a minute. The Office (US) and Parks and Rec, two massively popular shows, both started off with rough seasons. Heck, even Buffy had issues in that first season. Before the stream-pocalypse, shows would get additional seasons to improve on those issues. Now though, they’re just given the boot. Really sad for creative teams, and what sucks is seeing mediocre/poor things with established IPs like Picard get 3 seasons, but other shows that are starting and coming in with no name brand recognition get treated way harder and companies are much less lenient with them.
As far as I can see , there's never any been any logic to network cancellations . I like my older telly and I have spent many hours watching cancelled one/two season wonders . Some of these shows were immense . I even specialize in Buffy/Angel era shows 😛 . For every Buffy that makes it, there's a dozen that just peter out into obscurity . It could be the execs don't like it , or the advertisers don't warm to it or the audience doesn't adopt it . Buffy had all these problems too but beat the odds . It was consistently a critics darling , but so was Veronica Mars ,so was Boomtown . It didn't help them survive .

The network executive's first job is catering to the advertisers . But surely the postmodern tv mogul must have one eye on the streaming market and be thinking of a long shelflife for the product ? In that respect dumping a show like Legacies before 100+ eps seems shortsighted .
 
The only CW show I haven't given up on is Nancy Drew - and this is coming from a person who used to pretty much only watch the CW. The quality is just so poor now. Even Nancy Drew isn't that great.
 
The only CW show I haven't given up on is Nancy Drew - and this is coming from a person who used to pretty much only watch the CW. The quality is just so poor now. Even Nancy Drew isn't that great.
I have this theory. Back in the early 00s, tv was pretty much focused on the Big Six networks: CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, theWB, and UPN. There were some shows that were on premium cable or cable networks, but the landscape was much smaller. In a side-by-side of most content on cable vs the Big Six, cable shows usually had worse acting and writing. As streaming became popular in the early 10s, it opened up new avenues for tv shows. Many of the great actors/writers went on to streaming platforms, and that leaves more mediocre talent to run cable shows. Add the merger of theWB and UPN into the CW, and you have less talented actors/writers because the great talent is mostly onto streaming now. Because you're right. I love Nancy Drew and I love Kung Fu, but the other CW shows are all misses for me, and the talent is incredibly short as compared to the shows that debuted 20 years ago.
 
The only CW show I haven't given up on is Nancy Drew - and this is coming from a person who used to pretty much only watch the CW. The quality is just so poor now. Even Nancy Drew isn't that great.

Kind of weird that Nancy Drew ended up being a good show. If I remember right, the showrunner on Riverdale hates ND. Wonder what that says about the quality of his work… 🤔

Regardless, my understanding is that the CW stopped being great right about the time that they went super DC-heavy. The first few seasons of Arrow are usually touted as great, and the first season or so of Flash as well, but beyond that the channel more or less devolved into complete mediocrity. Legends of Tomorrow only worked because the cast and crew were allowed to do whatever the heck they wanted after a middling first season.

I guess this is the end of an era, but I dunno if that’s a good or a bad thing given the CW’s fall from grace
 
I wonder if we’ll hear news about that Babylon 5 reboot getting cancelled soon. That was supposed to be a CW show, but with the new leadership clearing house, I’m curious to see what will happen with that.

Sci-fi shows are usually the first to get the axe due to their large budgets
As I understand it will CW not decide about Babylon 5 until next development cycle.
Straczynski seemed to take it as a positive sign that they didn't say no directly but moved the decision to after all this new owner business.

/SK
 
Having just watched all of Babylon 5, I find it more relevant today than when it came out...and what I'd once dismiss as melodramatic then (including the intense propaganda that worked on too many) to be all too believable today.

I expect if they remade it, it would be an unintentional mockery (following a cynical corporate formula) to the characters portrayed in the original, so I hope it's not.
 
What's that, The Vampire Diaries is still going? Seems like vampires do live forever!
 
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