When was the last time I was disappointed a show had *not* been canceled?
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- December
- 18
If the fans of Journeyman ever needed a reason to bombard NBC with boxes of Rice-A-Roni, this is it:
NBC tells TVGuide.com that Bionic Woman has not —I repeat, not — been canceled.
If it is indeed true that Journeyman won’t get its back nine episodes, this is the biggest television injustice since Jericho was unceremoniously canceled by CBS.
A spokeswoman said:
Bionic Woman has not been cancelled. Production was shut down due to the WGA strike. In addition, we have not completed the initial 13-episode order, which will be the first order of business when the strike ends.
Look guys, the only reason I watched that last, craptacular episode was because I believed it was the last one ever and felt a twisted sort of obligation to see it through to the end, having been a huge BW apologist from the beginning, trying to convince folks every week that it was going to get better, pointing out the few bright spots each week in a sea of craptaculosity.
Now you’re telling me it wasn’t even close and that I might have to watch more episodes when it returns? Not gonna do it.
Journeyman started off slow, too. But it got better as time went on. After a couple of episodes, I nearly deleted it off my weekly DVR scheduled recordings, but saw a spark of something in the “next week on” promo and decided to give it one more shot. I’m glad I did, and I was hooked.
With a complicated premise involving time travel, family life and righting wrongs, Journeyman had to hit a stride. Once it did, it just kept getting better and better.
Bionic Woman, on the other hand, was pretty well explained in the pilot, while still leaving some mysteries, mostly involving Sarah Corvus. Then they even took Sarah away from us, and then … nothing. A whole lot of Becca, a whole lot of Jaime whining all the time about not wanting to lie to her beloved sister and not a whole lot of anything else. Not enough bionic-ness to keep the action-seekers interested. Not enough skin to keep the boys (and some girls) interested. Not enough acting to keep quality TV-watchers interested. Just a whole bunch of craptacularness.
NBC, do the right thing: Put Bionic Woman out of our misery and bring back Journeyman.
Photos courtesy of NBC Universal.ÂÂ
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 12:07 pm by Amy Vernon.
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I think one of the reasons why NBC is keeping BW and cancelling JM is because BW is produced Universal/NBC while JM is produced by 20th Century Fox.
I am SOOOOOOOOO glad Bionic Woman’s not been cancelled. I couldn’t have gotten a better Christmas gift!!!! However, guys PLEASE do NOT stop gripping and complaining about the show. With the writer’s strike, the BW production company can take your criticisms and retool the show as needed. Really, when you think about it a show doesn’t get a chance like this very often: A chance to see what viewers think and make adjustments accordingly. I will add one thing and that is being a trained journalist, I am not particulary impressed with all the bloggers out there who think because they have the ability to blog that they should. In this case I think you whining and moaning can only help; most of the time your just like the annoying hack at work who complains about EVERYTHING (think Angela on “The Office” or Dwight).
• Leonel – That’s an interesting thought and hadn’t even occurred to me. Hmmm.
• Greg – Thanks for your comments. If they could manage to retool things on BW and resurrect it as something worth saving, I’d be absolutely thrilled.
Your comments, though, indicate you haven’t been reading my commentary on Bionic Woman. When everyone I knew was saying the pilot was a snoozefest, I was saying they were wrong; I was a cheerleader for BW long after most had abandoned it.
I’ve said all along that no one would have been happier than me if they’d gotten it right. The absolutely amazing thing is that with the cast and showrunners they had they were not able to. Even toward the end, I was still blogging about the bright spots I found, but I found fewer and fewer as the season wore (and I do mean wore) on. By the final episode that was aired, I could not believe how incredibly crappy it was. And even then, I still pointed out a couple of things I liked about it.
You are absolutely right that a show doesn’t get a chance like this very often: to retool based on what viewers think. If they do that, hooray! Will they do that? I dunno. We shall see.
NBC are correctly showing a sense of fairness here. NBC’s policy is obviously to give a new show 13 episodes to prove itself. Journeyman has had its 13 episodes made, so they have made their decision. Bionic Woman has only had eight so far, so they are simply allowing it to get its fair chance.
If they had cancelled Bionic Woman after just the eight episodes, they would have become open to the criticism of cancelling it too soon. As it stands, either the show will improve enough to be retained (which I hope happens!) or they will be able to cancel it without anyone accusing them of hastiness.
I hope NBC executives rot in the fiery pits of hell for canceling this show. I hope their children are stolen in the night and castrated with a spork in an aquarium of leeches, and then salt is poured on their wounds. Without my weekly fix of Kevin McKidd, I won’t smile anymore.
Thanks for the info Gary. My feelings on BW is that it won’t a second season and that it won’t get commisioned for any new episodes (beyond the first 13).
BW is a wasted opportunity. However all the behind the scenes shuffles haven’t helped. I think MR is a good actress but lets face it she is overshadowed by KS. Why did the producers make Sarah Corvus more interesting than Jaime?
The new showrunners need to find a direction for the show and stick with it. Stop picking up plots and then abandoning them.
My last point – despite the bad plots etc…i’m looking forward to it returning.
I am a huge fan of Jericho and I hope it too continues.. but when Jericho was off the air for awhile—Journeyman & Bionic Woman really grew on me. They were both spectacular shows. All 3 in my opinion need to stay.