Introduction

It's a bitch of a job to try to appeal to the tastes of tens of millions of people. You have to figure out what kind of show will grab the largest number of viewers in the shortest amount of time, and there are very few second chances for a show that doesn't pull in respectable ratings immediately. There is little room of subtly or nuance in those first few episodes, because basic information needs to be conveyed quickly to the audience so that they have some kind of stake in the fates of these characters. And unless the budget is low enough that the station isn't losing too much money gambling on a new show, very few will risk a slot to let an audience build. That's one of the reasons why there's so much dreadful bullshit on TV. The stakes are too high to experiment.

There have been many oddities to slip through, however. If you look through the graveyard of canceled TV shows, amidst the typical crap you'll find some strangeness that somehow got on the air. It's not that the concepts themselves were odd (though that certainly is the case with a show like Toxic Crusaders), it's how they were handled. And no matter how critically-acclaimed a show is, if it doesn't hit with Middle America and the average Joe, it's gone. Thus, shows like Arrested Development and Freaks and Geeks get the ax, while According to Jim gets eight seasons. This can't just be chalked up to the masses having shit taste and no willingness to try something different. A show like Lost can be a huge hit and have smoke monsters, a complex flash forward/flashback/present time structure, and moral ambiguity. Also, something like Twin Peaks was (briefly) a big hit, which showed that a large audience sometimes wants to see the bizarre.

I was inspired to do this after watching Twin Peaks, hence the name of this blog. It stood out to me as a show that was both brilliant and shitty, hitting amazing highs and depressing lows. I started thinking of other canceled shows, and decided to start going through them, since it wouldn't take that much time (for some shows, that is) and because it's also interesting to see what kind of shows viewers don't warm up to. I honestly have no clue why audiences across America rejected a show like Freaks and Geeks, but they did. Meanwhile, like I said, fucking According to Jim...

Here are some rules I set up in order to do this:
The show had to last three seasons or under.
The show had to be canceled, not voluntarily ended by the creators. Hence, The State doesn't count, because even though it was immediately canceled before it even began airing on CBS, the creators ended it's run on MTV. So a non-starter doesn't count.
Also, I'm trying to decide on how many episodes a show should have before deciding that it's too much. The 60s Batman show lasted three seasons, but because it aired twice a week it has over 100 episodes. It's no wonder viewer fatigue eventually set in.

An exception is made for shows where several episodes are created, but only a handful ever make the air. Some shows that never even debuted but still managed to get a DVD release will be featured, since that's even more interesting.

Boring bullshit like a 90's Friends knock-off that was quickly canned will be ignored. I have no desire to watch a shitty version of a show I never liked to begin with. This blog is just going to be my selections based on what I either find interesting or just want to watch. I might make exceptions for shows such as Margaret Cho's All American Girl, since she actually developed health problems because of this show, and also because I went to both elementary school and junior high with the kid who plays her younger brother. It's doubtful that anyone else aside from Cho fanatics would want to see this watered-down version of her stand up act, but there you go.

Sadly, because of the very nature of this blog, some shows won't get covered mainly because I have no way of obtaining copies of the show. Fox's embarrassing fat girl sitcom Babes will not get a post until the time when someone, somewhere decides to either upload the entire series online, or Fox decides that there's an audience that wants to buy it. Since people don't even remember this show anymore, that seems highly unlikely.

Here's a tentative list of what I plan on watching and reviewing at some point. I'm coming to these shows with no previous exposure to them, so I'm not one of the people who watched Firefly and then bitched loudly to everyone near me about it getting canned. Same with Arrested Development and other shows that the internet mourns. My idea is to come to these shows as a random viewer flipping through channels and stumbling across them.

Animation:

The Ripping Friends
The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse
The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat
Clerks
The Goode Family
The Critic
Toxic Crusaders
The Maxx
The Head
The Brothers Grunt
Liquid Television
Ren & Stimpy “Adult Party Cartoon”
Aeon Flux

Sci Fi and Horror:

War of the Worlds
Friday the 13th The Series
Freddy’s Nightmares
Star Trek
Firefly
The Outer Limits

Superhero:

The Flash
The Tick
The Adventures of Superpup
Batgirl

Misc:

The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
Max Headroom
Twin Peaks
On the Air
Get a Life
Andy Richter Controls the Universe
Andy Barker PI
Ben Stiller Show
Undeclared
Freaks and Geeks
Arrested Development
My So-Called Life
Police Squad
That’s My Bush!
Heil Honey I’m Home!
Carnivale
Deadwood
Dark Angel

So there you go. Let's hope this doesn't prove to be too much of a waste of time.