Day #1 of the 30 Day Television Challenge

[shadowkat]

Day #1 of the 30 Day Television Challenge

The prompt is A Television Series that should never have been cancelled

Note, there are ones that have been resurrected and they don't count. If it got saved, you can't pick it. Only those television series that got cancelled and weren't saved.

Also, you can't pick the same one that someone else picked. What would be the fun in that? This is a challenge after all. Try not to pick two - since it makes it harder for someone else. (Although there's A LOT of cancelled television shows out there...that should have been rescued.)

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[petzipellepingo]

The Adventures of Brisco County Jr , I'm still mad about that one.

[shadowkat]

Oh that was a fun show - kind of a combination of Maverick and Wild Wild West for kids.

[cactuswatcher]

Practically doomed from the start Moonlight still managed to be a fine show, that a lot of people refused to watch. The original driving force executive producer fell ill after some promotional material was shot and our old buddy David Greenwalt took over before the pilot was shot. Most of the originally cast main actors were replaced with younger actors except for Alex O'Loughlin (now better known for the Hawaii Five-O reboot).

The first episode aired on CBS in 2007. A lot of people watched that and didn't go on watching it. It was vampire series for adults, and for whatever reason folks didn't buy into it. A nice big budget wasted.

I thought O'Loughlin and Sophia Miles were very good. Some people thought Joseph Dohring as Joseph was great. I think they were just hoping for a younger Spike. I thought he was a) too immature, if not just plain too young and b) not a good enough actor for the part.

Some people thought it was a rehash of Forever Knight. I've seen Forever Knight. It wasn't even close. In fact when it was stealing, it stole more liberally from Buffy, which probably hurt more than it helped.

Anyway it's on my shelf with Firefly and I rewatch Moonlight much more often.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZXl6A_Mkuk

[shadowkat]

Actually I think it stole a lot from Angel the Series and Forever Knight. (Angel the Series stole from Forever Knight. And Forever Knight stole from Kojack the Night Stalker and Brimstone.) Even David Greenwalt admitted that - he even said it. The Jason Dohring character was from Forever Knight. But the leads - were stolen from Angel the Series as was the concept. Which is what killed it - actually - because the audience it was going for was the Angel audience, and they were still bitter that Angel had been cancelled and liked Angel better. They'd be dammed if they watched Moonlight. (I remember discussing Moonlight on the Angel Souls Board and Buffy Boards - the fans were bitter.)

I watched it and actually enjoyed it.

It reminded me a lot of a lot television shows I'd seen - so I found it to be predictable plot-wise because of that. (Brimstone, Angel, Kojack the Night Stalker, Forever Knight (which was originally Rick Springfield and shifted to a Canadian show), oh and a few other shows that popped up at the same time - there was one with the guy who later played Jamie Lannister in Game of Thrones, and another one I can't remember the name of, not to mention Highlander and another failed Greenwalt series starring Billy Crudup. At that time - it was a popular television trope to do a supernatural detective series with a mysterious immortal in the lead. Add to that Supernatural - which was different and pulled in the audience that Moonlight was aiming for.

Lucifer is another take on the trope and it got cancelled by Fox and resurrected by Netflix, which did not exist at the time Moonlight aired). I liked Moonlight better than Lucifer.

Dohring was a good draw for Veronica Mars fans - who loved him as Logan. He really wan't drawing the Spike fans, just the Veronica Mars Logan fans. I know I liked him as Logan, but the actor wasn't Spike. And I agree - he didn't quite work here. Nor did he draw the VM fans. He was interesting, but I felt a bit off. What they were going for was a Lestate/Louis dynamic from Anne Rice, but it didn't quite play.

I think it would have done better if it had aired at a different time. And not around the same time as a lot of other shows similar to it...

That happens a lot with television shows - they get lost because of too many similar shows on the air.

[wendelah1]

There were a lot of great shows that got cancelled, weren't there? I wish that The Crimson Field had gotten more than 6 episodes before being given the ax. It was a BBC drama series shown on PBS about a British WWI field hospital. It had good, complicated female characters, including both professional and volunteer nurses.

[shadowkat]

I missed that one. (Possibly the WWII thing...which I'd gotten tired of..) But yeah, only six episodes? Wow. Considering how many Call the Midwife got.

[wendelah1]

And that Upstairs/Downstairs like drama that everyone but me was obsessed with?

It was set during WWI, not WWII, but I hear you. WWII has been exploited to the nth degree.

[shadowkat]

Actually Downton Abbey was set before, during and after WWI, which is an era that is seldom done in television series. For some reason, we don't see a lot of films or television shows about WWI or the period directly before or after. I don't know why.

As I was telling cactuswatcher above - the problem with television shows that are too similar to other television shows, is they get lost. Crimson Field was one of ten different BBC series that aired regarding nurses, coders, etc during WWII. It got lost in the shuffle.

[wendelah1]

No, I'm sorry. I didn't make myself clear. The Crimson Field was set during the first World War, not the second. Regardless, it certainly got lost in the shuffle.

You're right, we don't see that much about WWI. The Great Influenza was almost completely forgotten until COVID, outside of epidemiology.

Downton Abbey! That's the one!

Parade's End was a mini-series based on the novels by Ford Madox Ford. It was set before and during WWI. It was excellent, though brutally realistic. Not an easy watch for sure, but worth it for me. I didn't go on to read the novels. It came out around the same time as The Crimson Field, actually. Was there a centenary year--yes. Of course. 2014.

This one's really old--from 1979--so I don't know how well it would hold up after all these years. The BBC mini-series based on Testament of Youth, Vera Brittain's WWI memoir, became kind of an obsession--I read every volume of her memoirs, too.

I remember liking a couple of those WWII dramas. The detective series one was good--Foyle's War. The Bletchley Circle was pretty good, another mystery type series, but set post-WWII. I only watched a few episodes of Call the Midwife. It looked excellent--great characters, etc., but wow. So intense. A little bit went a long way for me. I did read the book it was based on and loved it. I can't remember any of the other series.

Oh dear, I've gone dreadfully OT, haven't I?

I like this meme. It's going to give me plenty of ideas for things to watch. ♥

[cjlasky7]

Before I explode....

WONDERFALLS!

Four episodes on Fox, and down the chute. I bought the full 13 on DVD, and they are a cherished part of my video collection.

But:

The plotlines set up in s1 could have lasted for years. Would Jaye and Eric find happiness? Would Aaron start the Church of Jaye? Would Sharon come out of the closet and find true love? Would we ever hear one of William Sadler's Republican folk songs?

No. We wouldn't.

https://youtu.be/J8JGcy1mrXU

[cactuswatcher]

I'm glad someone picked it. It certainly was fun to watch.

[atpo_onm]

Oh, good call-- same with me on the cherished part of my video collection! Wonderfalls, wonderful!

[cjlasky7]

Now and Again was a brilliant TV show, and I think everybody involved--Eric Close, Dennis Haysbert, Heather Matarazzo and (series creator) Glenn Gordon Caron--did their absolute best work.

They ended on a freaking cliffhanger!

Auuuuugh!

[shadowkat]

Yep. I hate it when they do that. Also that show was really interesting - I don't know why it was cancelled. I think if we had streaming back then - it might have been picked up along with Wonderfalls. Streaming has saved so many television shows now. Amazon saved Syfy's The Expanse, Netflix saved Lucifer and few others. Also television shows that would never have made it on broadcast networks have survived on streaming.

That said, they do cancel streaming series...abruptly. So we're never quite safe from that.

[jesuswasbatman]

My favourite show that fell below the radar: "Alphas". One of the few shows about society's response to superpowers that didn't fall into the usual "superpeople are metaphorical ethnic minorities and if you have problems with mentally unstable nuclear bombs walking around you're a Nazi" posturing. Also got cancelled on a massive cliffhanger.

[shadowkat]

I wonder if you've checked out The Boys - it's kind of the same concept, but a lot gorier and more violent. It's about a bunch of vigilantes who go after the superpower folks who are responsible for killing their loved ones - who were innocent of anything and just collateral damage. The supes are run by a corporation, and not nice guys at all.

I couldn't get through it - too violent for me, but it is biting satire and really upends the superhero genre.

[atpo_onm]

Most of the time I have to really ponder these prompts, but for once, a pick came to me in mere seconds. While this stunningly engaging series ended as well as it could considering, something I greatly admire the writers for pulling off, to this day I lament not being able to see what would have happened next.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkIyHSitUMc

On the plus side, though... Lena Headey went on to a well-deserved career-making gig, so...

You know, while the trailer here heavily emphasizes the action elements of the show, for me, it was always the quiet moments that got to me the most. The ep that I've watched more than any was the one where Cameron is damaged in an explosion and reverts to her primary terminator programming. Finally taken down after apparently managing to self-repair her programming, John is urged to destroy her by his mother and uncle-- with frankly, perfectly good logic-- and he doesn't.

That scene-- where he hands her his gun, and allows her to point it at him... "Do you still want to kill me?" She hesitates, genuinely deciding, fighting her basic encoded instincts-- and hands the gun back to him, answers, "No."

No longer just a slave to her programming... a lesson to us all.

I could so handle a movie-- or several-- as a continuation of this series.

[wendelah1]

What a terrific series. That was quite a cliffhanger. It about killed me when it got cancelled, too. I won an charity auction for a fic from a very well known writer for that fandom. They stiffed me--but if they hadn't, I'd have asked for some sort of resolution.

[shadowkat]

They stiffed you??? That's just bad form.

There is some good SCC fic out there. I think selenak was into it also, and was rec'ing it.

I loved the show - but am not at all surprised it was cancelled or ended the way it had. Had a great cast, and Jonathan Jackson was an interesting choice for Sarah Connor's love interest and her son's father. Also, he and the other cast member, not related in reality but were brothers on the show, have the same last name. Maybe that's why - they kind of look alike.

[wendelah1]

Yeah, there is good SCC fic. That writer wasn't the only one who defaulted on my fics. I had to issue a general amnesty--there were at least three other writers I can think of off the top of my head who never wrote my auction stories. These were all for the first auction--the one for Haiti. After that, I quit fandom auctions and went back to donating directly.

[shadowkat]

Flaking on a charity auction is kind of...sad. I mean I get doing it on a holiday or trick or treat fan writing gig, but a charity auction??