Boycott ABC!

I'm fed up with ABC and their continual cancellation and lies.  ABC has been at the hand of some great shows getting canceled.  Let's begin about 2 years ago with Eli Stone...a great show about a lawyer who gets "visions" that help him take cases...he goes from being an overpaid hot shot helping big companies who don't care about anyone but themselves to helping the little guy fight the big companies.  Anyway it was a great show that did however make it to a second season.  But, in season 2 ABC pulled it off the air only to air it's remaining episodes during the summer.  The exact same thing happened to another great show, this time a half-hour sitcom called Samantha Who staring Christina Applegate, about a girl who is recovering from a coma and has Amnesia and is re-learning about her life and realizes she used to be a horrible person and wants to change.  This show was also pulled off the air in season 2 to have it's remaining episodes aired during the summer.  The only problem with ABC airing these 2 shows final episodes during the summer is that they don't advertise it well and if you don't watch their channel regularly or have your DVR set to record the show and it picks it up, you would miss it!

Now on to another ABC show called Life on Mars.  This show was a remake of a show that had 2 seasons in London (here's the deal though, in other countries shows are picked up and given a certain number of seasons - ala LOST when they negotiated an end date).  Anyway the show was very good about a cop who gets in an accident and wakes up in the 70's where he must learn to be a cop in a different era, leading the audience through the wonder of is he dreaming or dead or what?  Well luckily enough for those of us who watched it ABC allowed them to "end" the series after 1 season which means they canceled the show but they gave the show enough notice that they could give the show an end that tied things up.  It did not end the same way the British version did and the ending was a little odd although cool. 

Now this year ABC went through a big killing.  This past fall ABC aired some new shows like Eastwick and FlashForward.  They kept pulling Eastwick and bringing it back...they vowed to air it's final filmed episodes and then when it came back they skipped an episode and then just didn't air the episodes they said they would.  Now they say they are going to burn off the final two episodes of Eastwick in the summer (july 10 to be exact) however my DVR now shows that they have replaced those episodes with their new summer series "The Gates" and "Scoundrels".  Why do they continue to lie to us!  The also say that another of their fall shows The Forgotten will air it's final episodes on Sat July 3...we shall see if that actually happens!

Flash Forward was a show that ABC really promoted.  And it felt like this show could take over for LOST when it went of the air in May.  However, ABC then pulled the show in November and gave it a 3+ month hiatus before bringing it back to air the rest of the season (which I'm sure helped them gain ratings).  Then the canceled the show leaving us with a season ending cliff hanger!  This is one of my biggest pet peeves about shows, and why I think the U.S. needs to start pitching shows for a certain number of seasons and signing shows to air for a set number of episodes this way the story can be told to those devout fans who watch every week.  Now there is a big campaign out there to save Flash Forward and we shall see what comes of this.

ABC started a sitcom last fall called Better Off Ted and it was hilarious, but they were so wishy washy with a day of the week that the show kept moving days and times, it was so hard to track down, the first season aired episodes in the summer and then this fall they brought it back for a season 2 and the same thing happened, kept pulling it and moving it and they said they would air it's last two episodes if there was no game 7 of the NBA finals...that's stupid so the fate of a show is decided by a basketball game! NO...this is not how you run a network.  So we shall see if Better Off Ted gets it's final 2 episodes aired at all...the show has also been canceled.

This brings me to the latest installment of ABC and their lies and horrible scheduling.  During the final season of LOST ABC began promoting a new show called Happy Town.  The promos made the show feel very much like another early cancellation show that the network forced to reveal mysteries before the creators had planned called Twin Peaks.  (A great show despite the fact that they were not supposed to reveal Laura Palmer's killer at the finale of season 1 but ABC insisted they would lose viewers if they didn't).  Happy Town was another mystery show about a town called Haplin in Minnesota where 7 people had disappeared several year's ago and the mystery was never solved.  The town calls the person who took them "the magic man" because the people all disappeared in a crowd of people never to be seen again.  The show starts with a murder and leads everyone to think the magic man is back and then a bunch of strange things start happening...anyway the show was very much like Twin Peaks in the fact that it was a mystery with magical type strange things happening.  Well ABC promoted it a lot and then it aired and then after 3 weeks it got pulled for some reason for about 2 weeks, then it came back and aired 3 more episodes and it was supposed to take a week off and air the last 2 episodes of it's 8 episode first season.  ABC then cancels the show and decides not to air it on Wednesdays at 10 anymore, they replaced it with repeats of Castle.  So leaving 2 episodes left to air (see a pattern with this) they cancel it and then decide they will release the final 2 episodes of the season online only!  So I watch the final 2 episodes and it leaves you with so many mysteries left to be solved!  It would be like if LOST had gotten pulled at the end of Season 3.

So I officially am boycotting ABC.  I will not watch any new shows on this network this fall.  I currently only watch 2 shows on the network and they are Modern Family and Cougar Town which I may now settle for watching online so they don't get my viewership at all!  I encourage everyone to boycott this network so that they see that they are pissing off their viewers with every cancellation and pulled episode! 

Newsworthy Notes

Some of this news is old some is new but it's about stuff I care about so I thought I'd share it with you.

First and foremost fans of ABC's FlashForward or organizing a save the show effort on June 10 outside of the ABC HQs in Atlanta, LA, Chicago, NY, and Detroit. They are planning a "blackout" where they will simulate the show's blackout on the streets outside the HQ for 2 min and 17 sec (just like the show)...All I have to say is I hope this works cause I loved this show. There is also a facebook page to save the show. It wouldn't be the first time a show was cancelled and fans got the network to bring it back with a grand gesture. Take CBS's cancellation of Jerhico for example. The fans sent thousands of peanuts to the CBS executives and funny enough, it worked and CBS brought it out of cancellation but it only lasted 1 more season (I didn't watch this show so I can't say if it was worth the effort but enough people thought it was worth it and it got saved)...here's hoping these fans can get this show brought back from the dead. Here's a link to the story on Variety.  And at the bottom of the story are links to the facebook save the show page and another website which my work computer wouldn't allow me to go to so not sure about that one.

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Here's another bit of news that I frankly don't care for.  Disney which owns ABC, ABC Family, SoapNet and many other channels has decided that in 2012 they will pull the plug on SoapNet and replace it with Disney Junior.  Great just what we need more cartoon channels!  I like cartoons dont' get me wrong but come on there are so many channels out there for kids.  And now how am I going to watch re-runs of Beverly Hills 90210 or One Tree Hill?  It also airs Gilmore Girls (but that's also syndicated on ABC Family) and the OC plus re-airing daytime soaps and talk shows such as The View and it even has an original series called Being Erica.  All of this will disappear so that Disney can air another channel aimed at toddlers!  I mean it's gonna air shows that are already on other channels like Handy Manny and other Playhouse Disney shows...just watch the frickin Disney Channel if you wanna watch these shows! Toddlers don't need a 24 hour network for themselves!  Toddlers shouldn't be watching that much TV! come on parents!  here's a link to a story.

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This is really old news but in case you didn't hear Glee, which will return for a second season this fall, has already been picked up for a third season!  This happened a few weeks back but it was during season finale time and I was trying to watch a lot of television plus I had already posted a ton of posts on here so I held on to the news for a while and am just now getting around to posting it.  But here's another bit of info about Glee for you.  The Complete First Season of Glee will be available on DVD September 14.  I know that's a long way away but it's news nonetheless.  There will be some never before seen Sue's Corner's, 3 behind the scenes clips and some karaoke sing-a-long feature.  If you already bought Glee: Volume One: Road to Sectionals, you will get a $10 rebate for buying the complete first season on DVD as well.  (This is exactly why I didn't buy the DVD when it came out because I had a feeling that they wouldnt' release the second half as a separate DVD so I said I would just wait for the full season to be released and if it was released as 2 sets of DVDs I would just buy the 2 sets when the second set came out).  More info on the DVD here.

FlashForward will take over for LOST next year

To all of you looking for a show to fill the void that LOST will leave at the end of this television season, I have found the answer to that void....FlashForward!  This show is amazing and has a lot of the WHAT? factor that LOST gives you.  It has been on for 2 weeks now and it is very interesting and leaves you wondering what is going on and gives you more questions to answer each week.  Genius!  Great show everyone should watch the first 2 episodes online if you have not yet watched and get yourself hooked!
here's a clip

Happy Watching