Wonderfalls cancelled? (1 Viewer)

[Robert Ringwald]

I agree to a degree. I mean, isn't it ridiculous to produce 13 1-2 million episodes of a show only to air a few?

 

[Jason Seaver]

It does seem like a poor allocation of funds, if you look at as return on that particular investment. Fox Network, though, is looking at it in terms of their entire budget. The ~$15M they've spent on Wonderfalls can't be un-spent, but what they'll replace it with is likely reruns that cost them close to nothing or dirt-cheap unscripted shows (maybe they run Forever Eden twice a week). If these pull in more than Wonderfalls did, Fox is making more money without spending more.

Of course, this sucks for the audience, and may not be the best long-term strategy. Clearly there have been bridges burnt between Fox and some creative people, and at least some of the more enthusaistic members of the audience have picked up on the behavior and passed on Fox programming because of it.

 

[Adam_ME]

Yeah, cuz telling everyone about shows like Andy Richter, Karen Sisco, and Angel has done so much good. Face it, the networks don't give a crap about letting quality series find an audience. Which is especially odd with Fox considering signature hits like The X-Files and 90210 were far from successful in their first seasons.

They better be really careful with all this reality programming they're cramming the airwaves with. I realize it's cheaper than scripted shows and most of them seem to be very popular right now, particularly with younger viewers. But the bottom line is it's a fad. And before they know it, the public will move on and they'll be left with nothing to replace it with. If you don't believe me, look at ABC which is still trying to recover from the debacle of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?".

 

[David_Blackwell]

Nuts. I wanted to see the talking cow creamer episode next week.

Be Seeing You,
David Blackwell

 

[Jason Seaver]

Hey, the failure rate for new shows is high (and Angel lasted five years - that's a success!). I'm not saying we as individuals can help every one, but not bothering because a show might "only" entertain you for a month does nobody any favors.

And even if shows like The X-Files and 90210 weren't immediate hits, they were showing week-to-week improvement. Much as people complain about Fox's quick hook (and that of networks in general), I can't remember any recent examples of them cancelling shows that were on an upward trend.

 

[Sven Lorenz]

While it is sad that this show didn't get a chance to find an audience you have to remember a few things:

1. The ratings were really, really bad. People have been talking about how it's a miracle that Tru Calling hasn't been cancelled - where's the surprise in the cancellation of a show that has far lower ratings than Tru Calling?

2. Fox even moved it to another timeslot and paired it with a similar show - but the ratings dropped even further and it didn't even manage to get the few people who watch Tru Calling.

3. While Fox does have a bad history regarding cancelling good shows, they are sticking with Arrested Development although it should have been cancelled long ago if they were only taking the ratings into account.

4. Wonderfalls was one of the most derivative shows of recent years - it combined the main character from Dead Like Me with the basic storyline of Joan of Arcadia. There was almost nothing original about the show and only two of the four aired episodes were good, the other two were boring.

Don't get me wrong - I would have continued watching the show for at least the first season. While it wasn't original or particulary funny it had some potential to turn into a good show.

If you really liked this show then get Showtime and watch 'Dead Like Me' which has basically the same main character (only even more sarcastic), a better and much darker premise and better writing.

 

[Kevin Grey]

Yeah, I don't think Angel deserves to be lumped in with the rest. Sad that it's leaving or not, the show got five seasons and the creators were at least given a half season's notice so they can try and bring it to a proper close. Aborted series like Firefly and Wonderfalls aren't even in the same ballpark.



And its worth noting that X-Files ratings in its first season were double what Firefly and Wonderfalls were getting. While the regular TV audience has shrunk since then production budgets have only gone up. Few shows are given the time to find their audience the way shows a decade ago or so did.

 

[Jason Seaver]

To be fair, Wonderfalls was in development well before Joan of Arcadia, and was in fact moved into production early so that it could air last summer. Why it (and Still Life) were held back is something I don't quite understand.

But, yeah, as much as I liked Wonderfalls, I have to admit that it didn't quite fart brilliance the way some would have you believe. If I wasn't aware of the producers' resumés (and Jaye didn't remind me of a girl I used to know), I don't know if I would have turned such a blind eye to some of the weaker writing holding the hilarious moments together.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

The Wonderfalls ratings were terrible. Should Fox have given it the post American Idol lift for a night or two? Probably yes, but they gave it the chance they gave it and it performed miserably and got worse ratings by the fourth episode. I'm just happy that they haven't given up on Arrested Development yet, which was my other favorite new show.

Regards,

 

[Sven Lorenz]

Exactly. That's the reason why Tru Calling is still on and will most likely get a second season - the ratings are bad but they are slowly rising while Wonderfalls' ratings were going down.

 

[Jodee]

The big difference there, of course, is that CBS actually committed to Without a Trace for the full season and was patient while they slowly saw the ratings build every week.

They didn't air it a few times and then say "Well, it's not beating ER, so let's cancel it."

 

[Jason Seaver]

But, again, the ratings for Without A Trace were going up, rather than free-falling like Wonderfalls. When a show loses over half its audience within a month, how much more faith should the network show?

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

This is Sh1tty news.
I want a DVD release.
They did it with Firefly, why not this?

There used to be a time when networks let shows build but not in this day and age.

 

[Michael Hughes]

Fox is a strange network. They nurture a show like 24 find an audience over the years, they take all sorts of chances on reality TV and here they can't let a new show that was critically favored find an audience after a few weeks. Moving it to the deathknell 9pm slot vs. The Apprentice and CSI was a killer blow.

Fridays at 9pm worked for me, but they had to let it build.

Terrible news, networks have a quick trigger these days.

 

[Evan M]

Gah.. this sucks. I was really enjoying this show.. :frowning:

 

[jonathan_little]

Which also happened to be the time slot of two hit shows named "The Apprentice" and "CSI." They moved the show from one bad spot to another.

After the way Fox treated "Andy Richter Controls the Universe" and "Keen Eddie," I should have just avoided all of their new shows. I'll be sure to do that in the future, because I'm tired of finding these nice shows and then having them dumped.

I will buy a DVD release of "Wonderfalls" if one ever comes out, but I'm really not holding my breath.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Yeah, everyone will benefit from that. You, the creative people producing the shows, Fox, everyone. Ignoring what looks good today because it might not be around tomorrow is just a complete win-win situation.

 

[MikeFR]

You know someone could create one hell of a network just by taking on all these cancelled shows.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Call it the FBF network (Flushed By Fox).

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

IIRC, the best rating it ever got was for the re-run of the pilot during that same timeslot.

Regards,