TheFutonCritic Reports Show is Cancelled

[Miss Golden]

On the Futon Critic, 8 Simple Rules is on the cancelled list.


ABC

NEW COMEDIES (5):
"crumbs"
"emily's reasons why not"
"freddie"
"hot properties"
"sons & daughters"

NEW DRAMAS (6):
"commander-in-chief"
"the evidence"
"in justice"
"invasion"
"the night stalker"
"what about brian"

RETURNING SERIES (17):
"according to jim"
"alias"
"america's funniest home videos"
"bachelor, the"
"boston legal"
"desperate housewives"
"extreme makeover: home edition"
"george lopez show, the"
"grey's anatomy"
"hope & faith"
"jake in progress"
"less than perfect"
"lost"
"monday night football"
"rodney"
"supernanny"
"wife swap"

NOT RETURNING (8):
"benefactor, the"
"blind justice"
"complete savages"
"eight simple rules"
"eyes"
"life as we know it"
"my wife & kids"
"n.y.p.d. blue"

STILL TBA (7):
"20/20"
"bachelorette, the"
"extreme makeover"
"extreme makeover: home edition - how'd they do that?"
"life of luxury"
"primetime live"
"wonderful world of disney, the"

[Superbowl]

I am still shocked and daized by this. We have had lots of great discussion here, and nobody and I mean nobody, ever thought that Less Than Perfect could be renewed over 8 Simple Rules.

I could even see both shows canceled, but to have LTP come back and 8SR canceled. What in the world could the network be thinking. 8 Simple Rules got better ratings than LTP, and much higher when you take into account the 8:00 vs. 9:30 time slot. Less Than Perfect could not even hold the low ratings from Hope and Faith. What gives here ? I just don't get it. Maybe some can explain what they are doing ?

[Raisingdad2004]

This is pathetic.

They cancelled all family programming, George Lopez is a load of rubbish and According to Jim is hardly a family sitcom - or decent for that matter, Non the of the comedy pick-ups seem Family oriented anyway "Crumbs" is the closest thing and that basically about a Mother trying to kill her Husband - Great?

[ImpossiblePrincess]

Originally Posted by Superbowl

8 Simple Rules got better ratings than LTP, and much higher when you take into account the 8:00 vs. 9:30 time slot. Less Than Perfect could not even hold the low ratings from Hope and Faith. What gives here ? I just don't get it. Maybe some can explain what they are doing ?

The only reason that I can think of is maybe it comes down to the cast's paypackets. Now i'm not American, but I assume that Katey Sagal, James Garner, and David Spade are bigger 'stars' than say Sarah Rue or Sherry Shephard and therefore the get a bigger salary. That's the only tiny reason I can think of to explain their outrageously stupid decision!

And while we're discussing the cancellation. I hope that ABC had the decency to tell the cast they were out of a job before the announced this lineup. I was reading an interview this morning with Katey Sagal in which she says that she didn't know if the show was coming back and that the way she was looking at it was that she 'had a job until she's told otherwise'. That article only went online today, so that makes me think that the cast were not given much (if any) advance warning. It's reminiscent of the way the cast of Married . . . With Children found out that their show was cancelled - some were told by passerbys, some from the TV news, some from shop assistants! That's a terrible way to treat people!

[Raisingdad2004]

That is a good point, I recall Superbowl posting an article a while backing reporting on sitcoms "modestly performing sitcoms with large production costs".

But I still doubt the network would cancell it for that, Its ratings would out weigh Sagal, Garner and Spade.

[Pavan]

Originally Posted by ImpossiblePrincess

The only reason that I can think of is maybe it comes down to the cast's paypackets. Now i'm not American, but I assume that Katey Sagal, James Garner, and David Spade are bigger 'stars' than say Sarah Rue or Sherry Shephard and therefore the get a bigger salary. That's the only tiny reason I can think of to explain their outrageously stupid decision!

And while we're discussing the cancellation. I hope that ABC had the decency to tell the cast they were out of a job before the announced this lineup. I was reading an interview this morning with Katey Sagal in which she says that she didn't know if the show was coming back and that the way she was looking at it was that she 'had a job until she's told otherwise'. That article only went online today, so that makes me think that the cast were not given much (if any) advance warning. It's reminiscent of the way the cast of Married . . . With Children found out that their show was cancelled - some were told by passerbys, some from the TV news, some from shop assistants! That's a terrible way to treat people!

Network programmers ponder their fall schedules
Testing their patience
Monday, May 16, 2005
Dave Walker

During a break from shooting the ABC Family movie "Campus Confidential" on the Dillard University campus last week, Katey Sagal said she didn't know if her ABC sitcom, "8 Simple Rules," would return for fall.

That seemed weird to me.

Sagal is a TV star who once romped as the ogle-able Peg Bundy in the Fox series "Married . . . With Children."

Later the voice of Turanga Leela in Fox's cool animated comedy "Futurama," Sagal had more recently helped hold "8 Simple Rules" together after the on-set collapse and sudden death of co-star John Ritter.

With just a few days to go till ABC's fall schedule would be announced, Sagal didn't know if the network would renew her ill-fated series, which debuted three seasons ago looking like a hit but which (understandably but valiantly) struggled after Ritter's death (it's the current season's No. 97-rated series, with 6.8 million average viewers).

Sagal was secure, but fatalistic, about the show's iffy status.

"I figure I have a job until I don't have a job," she said.

We'll find out this week, when ABC is scheduled to announce its fall schedule during the mid-May sales ritual known as "the upfronts," by which broadcast networks unveil their new seasons to advertisers.

Starting today in New York, the upfronts cap a months-long development frenzy known as pilot season, during which networks commission one episode each of dozens of potential new shows.

Those so-called pilot episodes are screened for test audiences, then the schedule-makers do their work based in part on the test results. If enough new series show promise, networks will bump established shows that are "on the bubble."

Pretty much every show not in Nielsen's Top 20 is annually "on the bubble" and vulnerable, though a lowly rated series with a specific demographic niche on a struggling network -- such as WB's "Gilmore Girls" -- is usually safe.

As it happens, a few New Orleans cable-TV viewers got sneak peeks at several of the shows vying to make Sagal jobless.

Cox Communications screened several pilots on its local-origination feed, Channel 10. Viewable by all subscribers, the pilots were scheduled by a research company that bought the air time from Cox.

Test-viewers, preselected by the research firm, were asked to watch the episodes, then questioned about what they'd seen.

Pilots are also tested in theaters (at least one is in Southern California, another in Las Vegas) rigged with mood-measuring devices, typically hand-held dials with which viewers can register likes and dislikes.

I caught three of the locally tested pilots, all evidently for ABC.

In the comedy "Emily's Reasons Why Not," Heather Graham ("Boogie Nights") plays a young woman looking for love. Capsule critique: Graham's character is employed in publishing and does the show's voice-over narration, so the comparisons with "Sex and the City" are unavoidable and probably transparently intentional.

In "Freddie," Freddie Prinze Jr. ("Scooby-Doo") plays a young man looking for love stifled by the live-in presence of multiple generations of his own family. Capsule critique: Big and broad and juiced with synthetic-sounding laugh-track howls.

In the reality series "There Goes the Neighborhood," established families on a Texas cul-de-sac audition potential neighbors -- with the winner getting a free house. Capsule critique: I'd rather live in a van under a bridge down by the river than next door to the people who live in this particular ZIP code, but that doesn't mean "There Goes the Neighborhood" won't find an audience.

Will Graham, Prinze or the picky residents of one Austin neighborhood trump sweet Katey Sagal?

If so, the opinions of a few selected New Orleans viewers will have made a difference.

The weird science of audience testing is notoriously imperfect.

"Seinfeld" tested terribly.

"Emeril" was NBC's best-testing new series in fall 2001.

This pilot season, "The Bedford Diaries," a prospective WB college-set drama, has tested well.

Which vexes Tom Fontana, the show's creator.

Fontana is responsible for some of the best TV ever made, including "St. Elsewhere," "Homicide: Life on the Street" and the HBO prison drama "Oz."

"My problem with testing is that I have never -- until 'Bedford Diaries' -- had a pilot test well," he said.

Not even the lovable "St. Elsewhere"?

"Noooo," Fontana said. "And 'Homicide?' Let me tell you, if I could dig out that research . . ."

"Oz," added Fontana, was never audience-tested by HBO.

Good thing. The hand-held mood-measuring rheostats would've melted.

"When they told me that 'Bedford Diaries' tested well, I got a little nervous," Fontana said. "I thought, 'I've done something wrong. I'm off my game.' "

Visiting New Orleans last week to work with theater students at Tulane University and the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, Fontana was still awaiting word on "Bedford Diaries," starring Matthew Modine and a large cast of beautiful little-knowns.

"All very young, all very talented," said Fontana on Monday. "We're sitting waiting.

"They do this stuff (testing) practically up till the last second."

Fontana has three beefs with testing: Anything unfamiliar or odd traditionally tests poorly; testing data sometime influence network executives to override their own taste; and test audiences see the pilots cold, without exposure to the months of pre-premiere marketing that real viewers get, including character introductions and a premise primer.

"Anything even remotely different tests badly," Fontana said. "Because the audience has never seen anything like this before, they spend the first 10 minutes trying to figure it out. Anything that is stylistically different or narratively different has a huge mountain to climb.

"The jump-cutting and 'crazy camera' in 'Homicide,' they hated that."

For contemporary network executives, testing provides a literal gut-check, Fontana said, fondly referencing the programming anatomy of legendary CBS founder William Paley.

"Paley would put a show on the air based on his gut," Fontana said. "He was probably as right and wrong as any executive has ever been. It's not like the golden gut was invincible.

"But to me, that's the kind of executive you really need running a network these days. You need as much of a visionary there these days as you need anywhere else in the business world.

"These are not people without taste. These people are not stupid. These are intelligent, creative people who want to make the right decision, who want to make good television. They want to go to a cocktail party and say, 'Yes, I was the one who green-lighted "The Sopranos." ' They want to go back to Mudville, Ohio, and say, 'Oh, it was me who said, "Let's go with 'West Wing.' " "

Executives will recognize a superior script or pilot, Fontana added, but then research results start to roll in and guts will start to roil.

"They love something, but then all of a sudden they start to second-guess themselves," Fontana said. "They'll say, 'Personally, this is the greatest pilot we've done this year, but the research says it's not. Am I going to hurt myself or am I going to trust the 40 people (with) their fingers on the button?' "

We'll know this week.

. . . . . . .

TV columnist Dave Walker can be reached at dwalker@timespicayune.com or at (504) 826-3429.

Heather Graham, late of NBC's 'Scrubs,' stars in an ABC sitcom pilot, 'Emily's Reasons Why Not,' which was test-screened last week in New Orleans.

[bschmale1113]

what make worse now That Less then Perfect looking may be headed unto Syndication and 8 simple Rules failed to make it now what only way to see John Ritter epiodes is either wait for season one & Two DVD TO come out or have ABC Family to pick up 8 simple rules liked they did to the olsens twins shot-lived series two of a Kind it a sad way only now it the only way

[Auntie]

Originally Posted by Miss Golden

On the Futon Critic, 8 Simple Rules is on the cancelled list.


ABC

NEW COMEDIES (5):
"crumbs"
"emily's reasons why not"
"freddie"
"hot properties"
"sons & daughters"

NEW DRAMAS (6):
"commander-in-chief"
"the evidence"
"in justice"
"invasion"
"the night stalker"
"what about brian"

RETURNING SERIES (17):
"according to jim"
"alias"
"america's funniest home videos"
"bachelor, the"
"boston legal"
"desperate housewives"
"extreme makeover: home edition"
"george lopez show, the"
"grey's anatomy"
"hope & faith"
"jake in progress"
"less than perfect"
"lost"
"monday night football"
"rodney"
"supernanny"
"wife swap"

NOT RETURNING (8):
"benefactor, the"
"blind justice"
"complete savages"
"eight simple rules"
"eyes"
"life as we know it"
"my wife & kids"
"n.y.p.d. blue"

STILL TBA (7):
"20/20"
"bachelorette, the"
"extreme makeover"
"extreme makeover: home edition - how'd they do that?"
"life of luxury"
"primetime live"
"wonderful world of disney, the"

Well, until E! News Live announces what's coming back tomorrow, than I'll believe it. But, if there is any truth to it, I'm not surprised. I've been saying since what happened in the past, the show hasn't been the same .

[Auntie]

Originally Posted by Miss Golden

On the Futon Critic, 8 Simple Rules is on the cancelled list.


ABC

NEW COMEDIES (5):
"crumbs"
"emily's reasons why not"
"freddie"
"hot properties"
"sons & daughters"

NEW DRAMAS (6):
"commander-in-chief"
"the evidence"
"in justice"
"invasion"
"the night stalker"
"what about brian"

RETURNING SERIES (17):
"according to jim"
"alias"
"america's funniest home videos"
"bachelor, the"
"boston legal"
"desperate housewives"
"extreme makeover: home edition"
"george lopez show, the"
"grey's anatomy"
"hope & faith"
"jake in progress"
"less than perfect"
"lost"
"monday night football"
"rodney"
"supernanny"
"wife swap"

NOT RETURNING (8):
"benefactor, the"
"blind justice"
"complete savages"
"eight simple rules"
"eyes"
"life as we know it"
"my wife & kids"
"n.y.p.d. blue"

STILL TBA (7):
"20/20"
"bachelorette, the"
"extreme makeover"
"extreme makeover: home edition - how'd they do that?"
"life of luxury"
"primetime live"
"wonderful world of disney, the"

I was just on futoncritic, and I did not see '8SR' on the cancelled list. So, until E! News Live announces the fall schedule lineup for ABC tomorrow, than I'll believe it than.

[TripperFan]

Originally Posted by bschmale1113

what make worse now That Less then Perfect looking may be headed unto Syndication and 8 simple Rules failed to make it now what only way to see John Ritter epiodes is either wait for season one & Two DVD TO come out or have ABC Family to pick up 8 simple rules liked they did to the olsens twins shot-lived series two of a Kind it a sad way only now it the only way

I really believe at the very least, ABC Family will pick up 8 Simple Rules once it's cancelled (which looks imminent at this point).

Again, it might take some pressure from fans, but I can't see a network missing a chance to cash in and they know many fans want to see reruns of John again.

[Auntie]

Originally Posted by Superbowl

I am still shocked and daized by this. We have had lots of great discussion here, and nobody and I mean nobody, ever thought that Less Than Perfect could be renewed over 8 Simple Rules.

I could even see both shows canceled, but to have LTP come back and 8SR canceled. What in the world could the network be thinking. 8 Simple Rules got better ratings than LTP, and much higher when you take into account the 8:00 vs. 9:30 time slot. Less Than Perfect could not even hold the low ratings from Hope and Faith. What gives here ? I just don't get it. Maybe some can explain what they are doing ?

In the simplist terms, when John Ritter died, the show died. Sad to say, but it's the truth. Most people watched it because of John Ritter. And even when Katy Sagal tried to pull the cast together, and even though she said that she feels that this is what John would've wanted, their not miricle workers, only actors. John was the main character on the show, (not that he acted like it, becasuse he didn't act like a celebrity).But at least they tried, If the show comes back(in which all likely hood, I doubt it).It all depends on what is said tomorrow when they (ABC) announces what's to return and what's cancelled.

[Ritterfan98]

This sucks First Raymond is ending then NYPD then THIRD WATCH ( PISSED ABOUT THAT) now this well now we can look forward to a 8sr dvd now!!!

[ImpossiblePrincess]

Awww, don't even get me started on the cancellation of Third Watch

[Auntie]

Originally Posted by Miss Golden

On the Futon Critic, 8 Simple Rules is on the cancelled list.


ABC

NEW COMEDIES (5):
"crumbs"
"emily's reasons why not"
"freddie"
"hot properties"
"sons & daughters"

NEW DRAMAS (6):
"commander-in-chief"
"the evidence"
"in justice"
"invasion"
"the night stalker"
"what about brian"

RETURNING SERIES (17):
"according to jim"
"alias"
"america's funniest home videos"
"bachelor, the"
"boston legal"
"desperate housewives"
"extreme makeover: home edition"
"george lopez show, the"
"grey's anatomy"
"hope & faith"
"jake in progress"
"less than perfect"
"lost"
"monday night football"
"rodney"
"supernanny"
"wife swap"

NOT RETURNING (8):
"benefactor, the"
"blind justice"
"complete savages"
"eight simple rules"
"eyes"
"life as we know it"
"my wife & kids"
"n.y.p.d. blue"

STILL TBA (7):
"20/20"
"bachelorette, the"
"extreme makeover"
"extreme makeover: home edition - how'd they do that?"
"life of luxury"
"primetime live"
"wonderful world of disney, the"

Sad to say, but your right. I was just on tv guide's 'breaking news' and they had a list of shows coming back and those that weren't. And those that aren't coming back are'My Wife And Kids', and '8 Simple Rules'. Although, I suspected this for a while. Ever since the 'Thanksgiving episode', I haven't been watching, it just wasn't the same without John .

[Yeldarb]

8 Simple Rules gone??? AHHH....

Well, the show was doomed to early cancellation from the day John Ritter died for no reason. But ABC just couldn't hold out for another season. I would've loved to see Season 1 in syndication, but like NOW I have to decide if I'm going to pay $40-50 just to see it on DVD? Bah! pissed: