Where do canceled TV shows go?

[EdwardKnoxII 0]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/05/u...v.ap/index.html

 

Where do canceled TV shows go?

The good ones become DVDs; the others, well ...

 

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- There are three stages of afterlife for a dead TV show, and a program's fate can be decided by its unaired episodes.

 

Heaven is a DVD release -- a kind of immortality for a series like Fox's "Firefly" or "The Tick," which had devoted viewerships that were too small for network advertisers but large enough to justify selling a boxed-set of discs.

 

Then there are the fallow summer months, a bitter purgatory where many as-yet-unseen installments of canceled shows are dumped in a last-ditch effort to fill the schedule with anything but reruns. Look for the remains of ABC's recently axed "L.A. Dragnet" to turn up here.

 

Hell, in this scenario, is never to be seen nor heard from again. Among the damned -- deserving or not -- are Fox's porn drama "Skin," ABC's supernatural thriller "Miracles" and the NBC version of the British sitcom "Coupling."

 

"Firefly," a sci-fi Western fusion series from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" creator Joss Whedon, is one canceled show whose unfinished season led to a happy ending.

 

The program, about a hardscrabble space crew 500 years in the future, lost its bid for survival on Fox's fall 2002 schedule after 11 episodes, with three more finished but unaired. Whedon and crew wanted their work on those episodes shown somewhere, anywhere -- and fans wanted that, too.

 

But Whedon resisted the idea of burning off those installments as summer filler.

 

"Fox still owned the property and could maybe fill a summer slot or something," Whedon said. "But then it became an advantage. If they never aired these, then we could put them on the DVD as something that made it more exciting."

 

There were three unaired episodes -- one about a bordello beseiged by a ruthless warlord, another about a dead body who returns to life and a third involving the crew's heist of an antique laser-gun. The four-disc set including all 14 episodes was released in stores last month.

 

Whedon currently is writing the script for Universal Pictures to turn the "Firefly" story line into a feature film. Successful sales of the DVD could help spur that project.

 

Hoping for resurrection

 

But overall, summer exposure is better than nothing. In some cases, it can even rejuvenate a program teetering on cancellation.

 

"Seinfeld" -- originally titled "The Seinfeld Chronicles" -- was a low-rated pilot in summer 1989. NBC held onto the remaining four installments for another year before dumping them in the summer. But -- surprise! -- they became hits and the series evolved into one of the most successful sitcoms in history.

 

ABC is hoping for similar luck with "Karen Sisco," its comedic-thriller starring Carla Gugino as a sexy federal marshal. The show was placed on hiatus recently with three episodes still unaired.

 

The network plans to air those shows in March in a new time slot, and its producers supported the idea of banking the unseen installments until then; it was better than letting the show continue to languish.

 

"We were going to be off the air sooner or later and what we are presented with now is a shot at having a life, and it was pretty obvious from the (debut) numbers that that wasn't going to happen," said John Landgraf, an executive producer of "Karen Sisco." "But no one is saying, 'Gee, we like the show and just hope they get it right.' There's pretty much a sense that there's a great show here."

 

Even when a show is canceled outright, the unaired episodes are rarely destroyed. In some rare cases, that dead TV show can become valuable again years later.

 

The Trio cable channel has had success showcasing these kinds of shows on its "Brilliant But Canceled" series, which highlights well-regarded programs that never found a major audience, like the recent "Andy Richter Controls the Universe" and the 1970s occult series "Kolchak: The Night Stalker."

 

But cult-fan demand isn't always enough to loosen a network or studio's grip.

 

'I felt like someone wanted to kill the show'

 

ABC's "Miracles" starred Skeet Ulrich as a priest who investigates supernatural mysteries that may be messages from God ... or the devil.

 

The show was canceled last spring. Only six of the 13 episodes made it to the air, and a fervent group of angry "Miracles" junkies have lobbied unsuccessfully for the DVD release of the other seven.

 

The show's creator, Richard Hatem, said he doesn't expect any miracles. The touchy subject matter of the series -- a blend of horror and religious iconography -- made executives nervous at ABC's parent, the Walt Disney Co.

 

But the more a network buries such unaired shows, the more some fans want to see them.

 

"For them to simply not air the episodes came across to us as malicious," said Angela Mitchell, a 36-year-old publicist in Hollywood, Florida, who helped organize the "Save 'Miracles' " campaign. "I felt like someone wanted to kill the show."

 

Many fans have taken to bootlegging the lost installments, making copies from foreign-market broadcasts and sharing tapes through the mail.

 

And for once, piracy has the support of a producer.

 

"Since there aren't aggressive efforts to make a profit from the show, the loss is pretty minor," Hatem said. "I'm never going to see another dime off 'Miracles,' but if people are watching and enjoying it, I'm more than happy."

[razazteca 0]

Keen Eddie is on the Bravo network.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

I have all of the aired episodes of Push, Nevada but they never aired all of the episodes and didn't even bother with trying to tie up the storyline. The only thing they worried about was giving away the money which they did. Id like to see that on DVD but I doubt it.

 

I only saw part of an episode of Miracles and I thought it was good but they gave it a crappy timeslot.

 

The Brilliant but Cancelled stuff on Trio is good, but it just makes things worse when they show 5 episodes of a show that was canceled and you dont have any easy ways to see any more eps.

[Guest El Satanico]

Keen Eddie is on the Bravo network.

IT IS!?

 

 

Just the episodes that were already filmed? Isn't Bravo assoiciated with NBC?

[starvenger 0]

Keen Eddie is on the Bravo network.

And can I say that I am damn glad that it is?

[Mole 0]

I am suprised they didn't mention Family Guy. It was the best selling TV to DVD of 2003.

[razazteca 0]

I have seen commercials for Keen Eddie on Bravo, I think it is shown on 8:00/9:00 but not sure what day.

[razazteca 0]

I wish the FX show Lucky would be released on DVD.

[Matt Young 0]

Two words: Get Real. It's too late to give it another run since it aired over 4 years ago, but this Fox show was one of my all time favorites. There were 22 episodes, and I demand they release it on DVD. It's too awesome not to be distributed.

[NYU 0]

Just looked it up. Keen Eddie premieres on Bravo on Tuesday, January 20th at 9/8pm.

 

Good. That show didn't get enough backing from Fox. It was definitely better than some of the crap they play now, so I'm happy to see that at least the repeats are being shown on Bravo. If it does good enough, we might get newer episodes later on.

 

Plus Sienna Miller....

 

 

 

[Guest Man Of 1,004 Modes]

Was L.A Dragnet the one with Ed O'Neill.

[EdwardKnoxII 0]

^^Yes it was.

[Guest Man Of 1,004 Modes]

^^Yes it was.

NOOOOOO!!! Just stick him on 8 Simple Rules for raping my Teenage stepdaughter....I mean 8 simple rules.

[razazteca 0]

^^Yes it was.

NOOOOOO!!! Just stick him on 8 Simple Rules for raping my Teenage stepdaughter....I mean 8 simple rules.

I could see it happen but think of the backlash it would get. Yes the son is almost like a Bud Bundy clone but there is no wacky and crazy neighbor unless they move next door to George Lopez...

[Guest Man Of 1,004 Modes]

^^Yes it was.

NOOOOOO!!! Just stick him on 8 Simple Rules for raping my Teenage stepdaughter....I mean 8 simple rules.

I could see it happen but think of the backlash it would get. Yes the son is almost like a Bud Bundy clone but there is no wacky and crazy neighbor unless they move next door to George Lopez...

Don't give me ideas.

 

I originally came up with the Atom Bomb...until I remembered I heard about it on the news once and forgot.

[Guest El Satanico]

Not this MWC redux crap again. Even if he did go on 8 Simple Rules, it wouldn't be anything like MWC. It would just result in people bitching about them not being the same as they were on MWC.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

I am suprised they didn't mention Family Guy. It was the best selling TV to DVD of 2003.

Family Guy actually lasted longer than all of the shows mentioned put together so it really doesn't count. For the most part, the article is about shows that got cancelled before their first year was up. Family Guy lasted what, 3 seasons?

[Mole 0]

I am suprised they didn't mention Family Guy. It was the best selling TV to DVD of 2003.

Family Guy actually lasted longer than all of the shows mentioned put together so it really doesn't count. For the most part, the article is about shows that got cancelled before their first year was up. Family Guy lasted what, 3 seasons?

Yup, but Fox canceled the show, un canceled it and so on.