My Own Worst Enemy - season 1 (1 Viewer)

[Brent M]

NBC has just canceled the show(along with Lipstick Jungle for anyone who cares). Bummer. :frowning:

 

[Greg_S_H]

They decide to retool garbage like Knight Rider but kill this? I wonder how many more episodes we have left.

 

[Joe_H]

Okay, I refuse to even give anything at 10pm on Monday nights on NBC a try ever again. Third time in a row.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I equate cancelling a perfectly good show to reading a good book and then half way through some jerk wad comes into the room and snatches the book out of your hands and tells you your not allowed to finish it.

This sucks.

 

[NeilO]

 

[Jeffery_H]

It's almost to the point that you have to pick out shows you think you might like, wait for the first season to pass, see the ratings, buy the first season on DVD and pick up watching season 2. They pull shows so quickly anymore nothing is hardly given a chance.

Next up Heroes? Maybe it lasts this season but I wouldn't count on another.

It's not just NBC either, FOX and other networks are about as bad. At least some shows were given a full season.

 

[ScottH]

Interesting. Just last night I was watching this week's episode and decided to bail about halfway in. I feel for the people that liked it though. For what it's worth, watching a show via DVD is so much better than week to week anyway so what Jeffery says is the way to go.

I guess we'll never find out the real reason for "chipping" these agents (that was probably my biggest gripe of the show - the premise was too absurd).

 

[todd s]

Wow. My wife will be upset. She likes both shows. Hopefully, if they are still filming the last episode. They can give some kind of resolution.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I liked the show, not as much as Journeyman which they only gave 11 shows but still liked it. Networks suck. Fox is thinking of pulling the plug on this season of Prison Break, Now I agree that it's time for the show to wrap up after this year, but their thinking of Dumping it with episodes left in the can and not airing them (although they would show up on DVD) when network's don't care about their viewers Why should we care about them? I'd rather give a cable Network like FX my viewership since they give their shows a chance at least and have had some solid series with The Shield, Rescue Me and Sons of Anarchy.

 

[Jason Seaver]

How would you retool My Own Worst Enemy, though? I think there are some pretty obvious flaws that could have been fixed: Henry isn't actually good at anything, and only succeeds by accident, for instance. I think a lot more effort should have been spent on having Edward's missions actually be interesting in and of themselves. In terms of having the show succeed, I think they got the emphasis almost exactly backward - instead of being new-viewer friendly with exciting action adventure stories and continuing elements that grew on the audience, they tried to sell the convoluted background story with only perfunctory individual stories. Trouble is, the mythology has a great big gaping hole in the middle (the split personalities don't seem to be of any benefit to anybody).

Maybe addressing those issues would be enough, but I wonder how many people have written it off.


I wonder how this is affecting Dollhouse over at Fox. The basic premises are pretty similar (regularly mind-wiped secret operative finds something amiss). On the one hand, I think they're in somewhat better hands as Joss Whedon and company can write decent stand-alone adventures, and it certainly sounds, from the scrapped pilot to time taken for retooling, as if they're taking steps to avoid the same mistakes My Own Worst Enemy has made. Still, this show's quick crash and burn has to have that network kind of worried.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I can't speak for the network but speaking for myself i'm worried already.

Whedon + high concept + FOX = disaster.

I'm expecting Dolhouse to get the axe quickly i'm sorry to say.

Sorry to be so negative but i'm finding it impossible to be optimistic given those factors.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Well, that's based on a sample size of 1, which isn't exactly predictive.

 

[Stan]

This may become my new way of trying out new series. Started four shows last year, "Moonlight", "New Amsterdam", "Canterbury's Law" and "Eli Stone". Liked all of them, but only Eli made it to season two.

Also starting to get a little worried about "Heroes". I'm a couple episodes behind, but it seems to have lost the magic it had in season one.

This year I'm gambling on "Fringe" and "Life on Mars". Feel pretty good about "Fringe" but will have to wait and see with Mars.

I can understand cancelling crap like that lame Jerry O'Connell hotel comedy after one episode (which was awful). But this series and others deserve a longer try-out period to find their audience.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Yeah, 'cause nothing ensures that there will be a season two like nobody bothering to watch season one. :rolleyes

People have been complaining that networks cancel shows too fast since at least the mid-90s. As far as I can tell the situation today is not, objectively, any worse than it was then. I like this show. I'm sorry more people don't. But I'm hardly going to blame the network for reacting rationally to the fact that people aren't watching the show in large enough numbers to make it worth airing. As for shows "finding an audience" - this one has been steadily losing the fairly large audience it started with.

Look, stuff gets cancelled. Newspapers and magazines go bye-bye, too. And within them certain features or columns or comic strips get cancelled. None of this stuff comes with a guarantee. That's why the book analogy doesn't really work. When you buy a book, you're buying a single story in one chunk, because that's the way it was produced. When you buy a TV show it is more like reading a story that is being serialized in a newspaper or magazine, and written as it is published. If the publication folds (or the writer quits or drops dead), odds are you're not getting the rest of the story. That's simply the risk you assume when you start reading something like that or tune into a TV series.

The fact is the vast majority of new TV shows do fail within the first year - and that has been the case almost as long as there have been TV shows. It only hurts when the show is one we like. We don't even notice when it is a show that we don't. (I'll bet lots of people would mourn the cancellation of Knight Rider - because more people watch it - but the folks in this thread would barely notice.)

Regards,

Joe

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

My book analogy was more intended to reflect what losing a good show FEELS like more than anything.

 

[todd s]

I still miss John Doe and Journeyman. :frowning:

 

[Aaron Silverman]

I got to that point several years ago already. This show looked kinda neat, but now I'm glad I didn't make an effort to follow it. (Since there's no Nielsen box on my TV, and I don't have digital cable, there is no way my viewing habits could affect the ratings anyway.)

I never even try a new scripted show anymore until it's on DVD.

 

[Joe_H]

Well, they answered the big question for some of you tonight, on why he would volunteer for the program.

 

[ScottH]

So what was the answer?

Although I think the bigger question for me was why did the program even exist in the first place? Wasn't really that interested in why Edward volunteered (or Henry if that turned out to be the case).

 

[KevinGress]

Well, to be honest, I think we're seeing the unintended consequences of the networks pulling shows fast - people aren't willing to invest in high-concept shows because they're afraid it won't be around long.

As I've stated before in other threads, I didn't watch the first season of Heroes until the very last (and after absorbing the Sci-Fi marathon in about 3 days) episode. Why? Because I thought it would be cancelled after a handful of episodes. It's also the reason I didn't haven't touched SCC, and why I'll try Dollhouse - only because of Whedon - but I won't get my hopes up.

We get that networks are 'selling the public' to the advertisers. We also get that networks shouldn't be obligied to carry programs only a handful want to see and lose money, but I do think that we've reached the tipping point.

I think that until a better model is adopted - a 2 hour self-contained pilot, 6 or 8 hour miniseries, etc. people are going to continue to let shows like MOWE pass by. Now, in this case it sounds like there might be a resolution coming, but as Inspector Hammer! wrote, in many cases there isn't a payoff, unless it goes to DVD. Why shouldn't I wait for the show to go to DVD first? In fact, while at this stage it's still dicey, I think a showrunner like Whedon would be better served to simply run his/her show directly to DVD to avoid the hassle, and if it's a hot enough product, then the networks will come crawling (see: Sanctuary)

So, in reference to your last paragraph, I've decided to not take the risk - I've chosen not to watch several shows because of the chance of being let down by not getting the whole story. There are too many entertainment choices for me to waste my time trying new shows that may leave me hanging, or crap like game shows acting as reality. While the networks don't owe me anything, I certainly don't owe them anything either.