Wonderfalls:Cancelled

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ana8

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ABC, Fox just doomed 'Wonderfalls'

ABC, Fox just doomed 'Kingdom,' 'Wonderfalls'



It sounds like an innocuous announcement: ABC is moving Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital to 8 p.m. Thursday beginning next week, while Fox is trying a first-run Wonderfalls in the same slot tonight to see how it'll fare.

It doesn't take a fortuneteller to figure it out. Wonderfalls is going to get killed. So is Kingdom Hospital. Because scheduling a show on Thursday nights at 8 is TV's equivalent of pushing a baby carriage into the path of an oncoming train.

But thanks to the quirks of TV ratings and how they're read - they make Sanskrit look like Dick and Jane - it's possible Wonderfalls will survive. Extremely doubtful; if the show were a patient, its condition would have to be considered critical. But it's probably looking at better odds than Kingdom Hospital.

It's true that more people watch TV on Thursday nights. But at 8 p.m., most are watching two shows: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation on CBS and The Apprentice on NBC. Going up against those two shows is like finding yourself in a buffet line behind a couple of sumo wrestlers. Not a lot of scraps left.

The thing is, Wonderfalls is the best show of the lot.

No matter. This is TV we're talking about. Ratings, which translate into advertising money, are what count. And Kingdom Hospital and Wonderfalls fare poorly on the ratings front which is why they find themselves in this predicament.

CSI is the most watched show on television. (It didn't air last week because CBS broadcast the NCAA basketball tournament.) The Apprentice is a Top 10 show week in and week out; last week, it finished No. 2. In a given week, the two shows together might attract 50 million viewers. Going up against them isn't a gutsy programming move. It's suicide.

In Kingdom Hospital's case, it's not such a tragedy. The show is a Stephen King project based in part on a Danish miniseries about a hospital built on "uneasy ground," which means lots of ghosts roaming about. It's mostly a mess, but at least it's different. ABC gets points for that, and the network has to take points where it can get them these days.

Wonderfalls is a different story, another good idea Fox can't seem to get people to watch. The delightful tale of a Brown University graduate who whiles away her time at a Niagara Falls gift shop until inanimate objects - toy animals, mostly - start talking to her, deserves better than the anemic audience it attracts (only 4.3 million watched its March 12 première). Caroline Dhavernas, though quite attractive in the starring role, isn't a classic TV bimbo babe. She brings a realism to a fantastical story that makes it all the better.

Some argue there's a chance that Wonderfalls will hold on to enough of lead-in Tru Calling's young audience, meager though it may be, and that the numbers will satisfy Fox enough to let the show live a little longer. There's also a chance that your lottery ticket is worth a truck full of cash.

Take that approach with the future of Kingdom Hospital and Wonderfalls. Hope all you want. Something good may happen. Just don't plan your future around it.




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I don't think Wonderfalls is necessarily doomed. Arrested Development gets the same ratings that the encore presentation of Wonderfalls got, both have critical praise and AD has lasted almost one season!
 
It's official Wonderfalls has been cancelled, if you want the link go to www.whedonesque.com thats where i found this information. i am really sad i liked this show a lot 🙁
 
So my first reaction was "OMG, this can't be true. I must investigate".

I tracked the original source of the info to a message board at Buffista.org.

My first reaction, "A message board. Thank God. It's BS."

The message in the forum is from user name Tim Minear.

I'm thinking this can't be true. What would a Hollywood bigshot like Tim Minear be doing on a message board? Then I remember Tim Minear is famous for his close contact with his fans, even going so far as to talk to them on message boards. (Drew Goddard and others do it, of course, but Tim Minear is famous for it).

So I go to the FAQs at Buffista.org. There's a FAQ there.

"Is that really Tim Minear?"

The reply, "Damn right, it is".

I go back and check the date on the Tim Minear post. It's April 3, not April 1.

I don't know. I don't want to believe this, but I think I'm going to have to, until I hear differently.

What can you say... The most criticly acclaimed show on television dies after 5 episodes. First Angel, now this. Something evil is working it's will on the world.
 
This is getting sad and pointless. After Angel is over now more TV for me! I hate this.
 
Dissapointing...But what else was I expecting..Is it like a rule now: If fans and critics like the show it must be immidiately cancelled??
 
I never watched the show in the first place... for me it's just another super-natural heroà¯ne thing, sort of been there, done that.
 
OK..I think I found the Tim Minear's message:Well, not sure what to tell ya'll -- but we're cancelled. Effective at once. The cow creamer will be silent this Thursday and forever forward. Once we recover from the not-shock, Todd, Bryan and I will see if there's some venue in which to air the remaining episodes. As I have said from the start, the thirteen taken as a whole tell a story and go to a place, so a run of this "limited" series would not be unsatisfying elsewhere. It's a question as to whether the studio will want to invest in a DVD release of a failed series. Maybe the episodes will sit in a warehouse someplace with that sled and the arc of the covenant.

Thanks for all the support and enthusiasm.

Tim

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Allycat said:
I never watched the show in the first place... for me it's just another super-natural heroà¯ne thing, sort of been there, done that.
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Oh Ally... you are just so wrong. If you said 2 + 2 = 5 you wouldn't be more wrong.

Furthermore I think this kind of attitude is part of the reason quality television never gets a chance. People that should know better, won't give it one.

Buffy/Angel people know Tim Minear is an A grade talent. They should have made every effort to make themselves knowledgeable on the subject and offered support to one of their own.

We should have seen the ides of bad tidings here, when Wonderfalls posts got banished to Caritas.

That Wonderfalls got cancelled should be the shared shame of all Buffy/Angel fans. Or at least that's one fan's opinion.
 
Hey lets think about the good side. Soon we will have another reality show.
My try of being sarcastic on a message board.
 
ana8 said:
Dissapointing...But what else was I expecting..Is it like a rule now: If fans and critics like the show it must be immidiately cancelled??
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That's true..and so freaking unfair!
 
This just proves my theory that no good cult show can last on Fox. And why is Tru Calling still on?
 
Never watched it as Im from the UK but its like two episodes in. Cant the execs give shows a chance anymore?
 
Too much cancellation...I just can't take it! 😱 This show rocks, and it's not gonna air anymore. It just ticks me off.
 
AshSan said:
Never watched it as Im from the UK but its like two episodes in. Cant the execs give shows a chance anymore?
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This probably means very little to Wonderfalls fans, but when Les Moonves came to talk to our class last week he said something that I never really thought about before. That when the network cancells a show after 5 episodes - they've seen the next 4 or 5 episodes. So they know if it's getting better or not. (According to them, of course.)

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Here's what Tim Minear says on the subject.

"The thing I learned from 'Firefly,'" he says, "is that if a network doesn't understand the property in their bones, they will not, no matter how much they want to, be able to support it. If they don't have it, they can't sell it. That's all there is."

"There's a lot of fear about 'Wonderfalls,'"
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Apparently episodes 6 to 13 were supposed to go into an arc. This is what Tim Minear has to say on the subject in an interview:

Q. Why should people watch Wonderfalls? Give us your best sales pitch. One paragraph. Go.

A. I think it's good. Also, it adds up to something. Look, I've, um, seen them all. The story arc of it really starts heating up around episode 6. So do stick with us for the first 13 episodes. If for no other reason, when you see the twenty miracles that Caroline Dhavernas' face performs in the last shot of episode 13, you will be glad you stayed.

And don't fret about network plug-pulling. I have trod this road before and I've cleared the way of minefields for you. I can promise that if we only ever get to 13, it'll be worth it and you won't feel cheated.
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Unfortunately we'll never know, because we won't get to 13.
 
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