Can someone, anyone please get a petition going to bring it back?

It’s just too good to pass up without a fight.

TV has gone to crap over the past years with all of the reality garbage.

American Idol is complete garbage. I realize it gets huge ratings. I’m just amazed that so many American viewers are so clueless and actually like watching that crap.

I think back to other shows that didn’t do well initially but eventually grabbed huge audiences: “Seinfeld” & “Cheers”. “Cheers” didn’t take off until its third season and “Seinfeld” got two chances before it finally stuck.

These shows probably wouldn’t have made it in todays network shuffle.

Shows like “Daybreak”, and “The Nine” should certainly be given at least one season and maybe two to grab an audience.

Two surprising shows for me this year were “Big Day” and “Help Me, Help You”. I didn’t discover either until they were several episodes into the season and I had to download them to catch up on them. Both have been very funny and each may have grabbed a sizable audience if they’d been given a chance (and greater promotion).

Good comedies are always a rarity (like “Arrested Development”) and when any show has a linear timeline the networks always take the chance that people who would’ve watched them might miss a few episodes and end up lost or decide not to watch.

I’m one of those people who hates to come in on a storyline that is already in process and because of that I’ve missed out on some outstanding series (”Arrested Development”, “24″ & “Prison Break” come immediately to mind).

Last year, two knockoffs on the “Lost” theme (or maybe it was the “4400″ theme depending on how you view it) were excellent series: “Threshold (CBS)” and “Invasion (ABC)”. Each were canceled too quickly. At least “Invasion” was given an entire season, but “Threshold” was pulled after just a few episodes (and it was easily the best of the three “Lost” clones from that year… “Surface (NBC)” being the 3rd). By the end of “Invasion”’s first season it was really good!

I gave up on “Lost” in its first season…. too many reruns up front and the ’supernatural’ storyline didn’t work for me — I thought they could’ve kept the story based in ‘reality’ and it would’ve been an excellent series on that basis.

It’s a shame that the networks, in their all consuming need for immediate market-share and ad revenue and even more immediate need to keep their stock prices up — give up on promising series before they’ve been given a chance to take root.

With all the options for entertainment these days they certainly can’t expect to fill their schedules with only shows that are immediate hits. Many shows need to time to develop an audience and the smarter the show is the more time required. “Homicide: Life on the Streets” would have never survived in today’s market and what an incredible shame that would’ve been!

Well, who knows.. maybe we will get a 4th “CSI” or a 5th “Law & Order” or some new inane reality/game show to fill the schedule! And they wonder why the network TV audience keeps falling each year.

Compare the best dramas on network TV to HBO’s “Sopranos”, “Six Feet Under”, “The Wire”, “Sex and the City”, “Rome” etc.. You could clean up the language and/or violence in all of those series and they still would’ve been great dramas.

http://petitiononline.com/justice0/

and

http://petitiononline.com/lgenna/

FOX better start making smarter decisions!!!

1. Big Four hype shows to the skies just before a MAJOR sporting event is broadcast. This insures a higher audience number will tune in before & after the sporting event.

2. After pulling our chains with double-broadcasts, different-day scheduling they hit us with i.e. “Kidnapped with return in 3 weeks with all new episodes”. Then they run marathons of the new show on a rival network–say USA & Kidnapped.

3. At this point the show’s future is in doubt anyway.

4. Then they trump up some bogus justification of why the show is cancelled. My personal favorite? Ray Liotta of the superb “Smith” is too MENACING for television. Have they watched any cartoons/video games lately?

5. Networks then just ERASE the show from our memory INSTALL another one that stinks in it’s place. Cancel that one & finally stick a CHEAP & worthless “reality show” in it’s place.

It is all about the bottom line with these NY executives that are calling the shots for Hollywood. (Remember when you could watch the credits, locations of a show then it would end. Not anymore, they have pushed the screen to 1/3 it’s size to run ads hyping other “network plugs” that they have been showing incessantly for the duration of the show you just watched. Why? You tell me!)

It all goes back to the SAG strike about 7 years ago the Big Four had to eat crow on that one–NEVER AGAIN. The viewers don’t deserve quality. The lemming audience for the reality crap is their proof.

Solution? If you see a quality show WATCH IT. A little bit of heaven is better than a lot of hell.

WHY can’t smart shows survive without being monster revenue makers? Surely -having a show smarter than my dog is possible other than on HBO?