Miracle's gone?? (1 Viewer)

[Dwight Amato]

I was all set to watch Miracle's last night at 10PM after The Practice, when what comes on but yet another The Practice. My Replay TV guide, and my cable box guide, showed Miracles was supposed to be on.

Is this show cancelled? If not, they certainly aren't giving it the best opportunity to stay on tv.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

It has not been officially cancelled, all patterns indicate it will be soon

Then The Prodigal Greenwalt can return to Team Whedon where he belongs

 

[Jason Seaver]

It does look like ABC's planning to cut bait on Miracles and Veritas. Can't say I blame them; the ratings have been in a swan dive almost worthy of Harsh Realm and they just haven't gelled. Miracles had a heck of a pilot to live up to, and I don't think the show ever quite managed it.

 

[Everlasting Gobstopper]

Miracles had a heck of a pilot to live up to, and I don't think the show ever quite managed it.

Not until the amazing episode which was supposed to have aired last week and has been indefinitely postponed, no.

 

[todd stone]

I agree, the 1st episode was very well done.. the rest were just bleh IMO.

 

[Jeff Kohn]

I don't think it's fair at all to blame the ratings on the quality of the show, but rather on ABC's piss-poor handling. The show was pre-empted more weeks than not.

What's strange is that the futon critic is carrying a story saying that Veritas has been placed on haitus until the summer, but there was no mention of Miracles.

 

[Jason Seaver]

I don't think it's fair at all to blame the ratings on the quality of the show, but rather on ABC's piss-poor handling. The show was pre-empted more weeks than not.

Well, I figure shows seldom fail (or succeed) for any one reason. Yes, the scheduling was a gigantic handicap, both in terms of having to consistently face popular, entrenched programming on NBC and CBS while and getting pre-empted frequently - I give you that. But, the ratings were declining pretty steadily those first few weeks. Folks who tuned in at first weren't coming back. And there's got to be a reason.

Part of the problem, I think, is that the pilot turned out not to be representative of the series. Not as a quality thing, but that pilot (which show-runner David Greenwalt saw and with which he fell in love enough to leave a show he'd co-created) was something special: An interesting story of faith being tested and challenged and the nifty irony of the church trying to debunk miraculous happenings. It also had a central character with a sense of wonder, feeling a full range of emotions about the things he didn't know and couldn't explain.

The show we eventually got, while a very good smart horror program, has a different set-up than the pilot, and takes the strange events more in stride. As good as it is, I think I would have preferred a show about Callan investigating miracles for the Catholic Church, with Hector Elizondo rather than Angus MacFadyen. And that's the thing. The people who weren't interested in the pilot's vision didn't stick around for episode 2, and the people who wanted the show to be more like the pilot started drifting away.

It's not as harsh a dichotomy as The Lone Gunmen (where the pilot was fairly serious and the subsequent show was much more comedic), but considering the relatively low numbers Miracles premiered to, this difference might have been enough to hurt. Maybe not as much as the scheduling nightmares, but enough.

 

[Jeffrey_Scotts]

The people who weren't interested in the pilot's vision didn't stick around for episode 2, and the people who wanted the show to be more like the pilot started drifting away.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

We have a winner and exactly correct!

 

[danak]

The people who weren't interested in the pilot's vision didn't stick around for episode 2, and the people who wanted the show to be more like the pilot started drifting away.

I think you nailed exactly the problem I was having with this show. Like you said, when the show was first described, it was about a priest investigating reports of miracles for the Church. And then it became something else entirely, more X-Files-like, with a team investigating strange occurrences. I got really confused and thought I heard wrong on what the show was about. I'm glad to see it wasn't me.

Has anyone heard what happened between the pilot and the start of the series? Why did the producers completely upend the premise of the show?

Dana

 

[Jason Seaver]

I don't know why it happened, but that's when Greenwalt came aboard. I love the guy, he's done great work on Buffy and Angel, and he hasn't made Miracles a bad show by any means, but he does seem to be the catalyst.

 

[Don Peskin]

I thought I stupidly set the vcr to record from 9-10 instead of 10-11. It's nice to know it's the network that's stupid, not me.
I just started watching 2 weeks ago and liked it. Well at least I didn't invest a lot of time in it like I did with Farscape.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Well at least I didn't invest a lot of time in it like I did with Farscape.

Yeah, it stinks when you spend your time doing things that you enjoy.