Cancelled! The Game

[Starbreaker]

I've had a little bit of fun with this the past couple of years. You pick what shows get cancelled and you get to pretend like you're a psychic or a great judge of television. I thought I'd open this up to a full blown season long contest. Shows start premiering in just a couple of months.

This first round is where you predict what will get cancelled before anything even airs.
Each correct answer at the end of the season will be worth 3 points in this first round.
For each incorrect answer, you will be deducted 1 point.

So, I hope I'm making sense. This is the biggest round right here. I've left out reality shows and cable shows for now.

[Temis the Vorta]

This is more fun than acutally watchng the shows!

Thumbs Down

The Mob Doctor - looks terrible

The Last Resort - male skewing premise on a female skewing network and a terrible timeslot with too much competition, especially for men

Smash - they ahd their chance, they only got a reprieve because its the boss' pet and NBC is desperate

Do No Harm - looks terrible

Thumbs Up

Vegas and Elementary - looks like CBS has done it again, both are great fits for their audience

Revolution - NBC is desperate and the audience is desperate for something fun and a little bit different to watch

666 Park Avenue - Terry O'Quinn and Vanessa Williams will provide the name recognition to get audience sampling and how hard can it be to make satanic hijinks in a glitzy NYC setting fun?

Nashville - Connie Britten has a loyal following and the topic isn't over-exposed, and has Middle America appeal

Grimm - its got a loyal cult following that is large enough for survival on NBC especially on Fri; the only thing that might endanger it is if NBC's new fall lineup becomes a huge success and changes their standards but I'm not holding my breath!

Starbreaker wrote:

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This first round is where you predict what will get cancelled before anything even airs. Each correct answer at the end of the season will be worth 3 points in this first round. For each incorrect answer, you will be deducted 1 point.

Shoot, I should have voted for more than four. I think the way to win this game is to vote for everything. Most new shows get cancelled, so the odds are you'll score more 3's than 1's and come out ahead. I only voted for 4 so I've already lost!

[Jax]

Most of NBC's new shows will probably go keeping the older ones just because there close to syndication.

[Temis the Vorta]

The new shows better not expect much overseas help in shoring them up financially. Foreign buyers are underwhelmed by this year's crop.

At first I thought, no wonder, this year's network offerings are so pallid an uninspired. But better quality apparently wouldnt help:

The past five years, however, have seen the rise of U.S. cable channels including AMC and FX and their move into edgier, darker original fare a la Mad Men, Justified and The Walking Dead. Critics might lavish praise on these shows, but they often are too niche or violent for most international broadcasters.

"These are shows for the critics, but you can't get a network to buy them," says Jan Tibursky, who acquires for the German and Swiss TV markets. "Even The Following -- which is probably the best new show of the season, the only one that is really trying something new -- is just too violent for primetime [internationally]."

The Walking Dead, ok, that's pretty harsh stuff, but Justified is only occasionally really violent and Mad Men is hardly violent at all. I didn't realize the good stuff is unpopular overseas?

OTOH the new Dallas had a great launch in the UK. Not that that's my idea of a good show but is fun and watchable and apparently middlebrow soaps play well internationally.

[Beagleman]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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I didn't realize the good stuff is unpopular overseas?

Actually it isn't but in this day and age no one cares for dubs or having to wait for 6 months to see the show they like. About everyone I know watches most of these shows, but we rather watch them the day after they aired in the US, if you know what I mean...

[Temis the Vorta]

But everyone waits patiently for CSI?

Sure, piracy is a factor, but why isnt everyone pirating everything proportionately? And why don't they pirate the crap shows instead, so that the good stuff will be encouraged instead of vice versa!

[Beagleman]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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But everyone waits patiently for CSI?

Sure, piracy is a factor, but why isnt everyone pirating everything proportionately? And why don't they pirate the crap shows instead, so that the good stuff will be encouraged instead of vice versa!

Well the crap is what the masses love, those who don't look for quality, who just come home, turn on the and turn out. Same as in the US. And that's exactly the problem, only quality stuff gets pirated so those who would be interested don't care when/if it airs and that's what destroys the market for quality shows.

[Temis the Vorta]

Plenty of mass-taste TV shows and movies get pirated, for movies especially.

2012 top pirated TV shows.

Mixed bag of intellectual fare like Game of Thrones and Mad Men, and mainstream stuff like How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory and Desperate Housewives.

The movies lists are even more squarely cenetered on mass market tastes:

Top pirated movies.

So yeah, The Avengers, Hunger Games, Dark Knight, Battleship - a lot of the standard big hits - plus The Dictator and some other stuff I havent heard of, but not exactly intellectual material. Two rom-coms and a movie with Zac Efron. (Funny - where's Spider-Man?)

So it doesnt look to me like piracy is hurting the good stuff any more than it hurts the middlebrow stuff and the crappy stuff.

[Temis the Vorta]

A bit more on topic: ABC now recognizes that Netflix streaming can help shows stave off cancellation, especially serialized shows that people need to catch up on. More here.

Good news to see that the notion that Netflix is the enemy, is breaking down more and more.