Intervention?
It's official--Point Pleasant has been cancelled. What was supposed to be the final episode was bumped to air the delayed premiere of Life on a Stick and American Idol show due to the mix-up with the Idol phone numbers. Hm...four camera sit-com set in a mall food court or a drama centered around a girl's struggle with being the daughter of the devil co-created by Buffy writer Marti Noxon? Doesn't seem like a difficult choice to me.
What can we do about FOX? It's so easy to curse their name or just say, "Well, that's FOX for you." But this has to stop.
It's so hard to know what to do with FOX. They do greenlight excellent shows. They are the network that brought us The Simpsons, The X-Files, Ally McBeal, and Arrested Development. What I've seen of House, 24, Malcolm in the Middle, King of the Hill, Futurama, and The Bernie Mac I've enjoyed. And you must give them some credit for actually deciding to air Firefly and Point Pleasant. The FOX network is no stranger to good TV.
But they also greenlight so many sit-coms and stupid reality stunts that I just have absolutely no desire to watch. Especially if you normalize for the fewer hours of network programing that FOX offers compared to ABC, NBC, and CBS, FOX seems to be more likely to give a show a chance to air.
This could be part of their problem. I'm guessing Point Pleasant was cancelled for poor ratings. It averaged a 4.09 rating in its 8-week run. It will be replaced on the schedule with the six unaired episodes of Tru Calling, which FOX had initially planned to run after they yanked North Shore in the post-The O.C. timeslot, but they thought they had a hit that meshed nicely with The O.C. in Point Pleasant. During it's 20 episode first season, Tru Calling averaged a 4.55 rating. As there are five remaining unaired episodes of Point Pleasant, maybe it will return to the slot after they run out of Tru Calling episodes, or as filler in, say, June 2006.
FOX has fallen victim to a classic blunder. They are always looking for the next Hot Hot Hot!!!! thing, at the cost of letting something grow and build into something great. If you replace a show with slightly below average ratings but with fans who actively like the show with a different show with slightly below average ratings perhaps with people who will watch it because they were already on your network and won't change the channel, there's no net gain in viewership, accept for a possible slight bump for to give it a try and not like it, at the cost of hurting more people than you will make happy with the show about the madcap adventures of perveyers of corn dogs. The last thing that happened on Point Pleasant was the evil guy killing of the guy that had been set up as a great asset to the main character as the price for not killing the surrogate sister who may or may not really believe in her. Why would I want this when I can have "Hey, let's deep fry everything in the boss's office supplies," which was funnier in the The Office with the stapler in the Jell-O mold mainly because things are always funnier when you have interesting characters. Well, no I think a Jell-Oed stapler is just funnier than and deep-fried desk lamp regardless of who the characters are.
FOX has this huge hit with American Idol. Yeah, I don't really get it myself, but I can't deny that it is a huge ratings success, drawing in lots of ad revenue and as a reality show, I'm assuming it has low production costs. Why not let some of this cash subsidize a TV show that is actually trying to tell a story that's a season long? Currently showing at MoMA is Contemporary Voices: Works from The UBS Art Collection. UBS is an investment bank and assest management firm, but yet they see it worthwhile to subsidize the arts. Why can't a ratings generation company like FOX do the same? Oh, that's right they are. Stacked with Pamela Anderson is coming soon to a television far away from me. At least I can take comfort in knowing that it won't last very long.
What can we do about FOX? It's so easy to curse their name or just say, "Well, that's FOX for you." But this has to stop.
It's so hard to know what to do with FOX. They do greenlight excellent shows. They are the network that brought us The Simpsons, The X-Files, Ally McBeal, and Arrested Development. What I've seen of House, 24, Malcolm in the Middle, King of the Hill, Futurama, and The Bernie Mac I've enjoyed. And you must give them some credit for actually deciding to air Firefly and Point Pleasant. The FOX network is no stranger to good TV.
But they also greenlight so many sit-coms and stupid reality stunts that I just have absolutely no desire to watch. Especially if you normalize for the fewer hours of network programing that FOX offers compared to ABC, NBC, and CBS, FOX seems to be more likely to give a show a chance to air.
This could be part of their problem. I'm guessing Point Pleasant was cancelled for poor ratings. It averaged a 4.09 rating in its 8-week run. It will be replaced on the schedule with the six unaired episodes of Tru Calling, which FOX had initially planned to run after they yanked North Shore in the post-The O.C. timeslot, but they thought they had a hit that meshed nicely with The O.C. in Point Pleasant. During it's 20 episode first season, Tru Calling averaged a 4.55 rating. As there are five remaining unaired episodes of Point Pleasant, maybe it will return to the slot after they run out of Tru Calling episodes, or as filler in, say, June 2006.
FOX has fallen victim to a classic blunder. They are always looking for the next Hot Hot Hot!!!! thing, at the cost of letting something grow and build into something great. If you replace a show with slightly below average ratings but with fans who actively like the show with a different show with slightly below average ratings perhaps with people who will watch it because they were already on your network and won't change the channel, there's no net gain in viewership, accept for a possible slight bump for to give it a try and not like it, at the cost of hurting more people than you will make happy with the show about the madcap adventures of perveyers of corn dogs. The last thing that happened on Point Pleasant was the evil guy killing of the guy that had been set up as a great asset to the main character as the price for not killing the surrogate sister who may or may not really believe in her. Why would I want this when I can have "Hey, let's deep fry everything in the boss's office supplies," which was funnier in the The Office with the stapler in the Jell-O mold mainly because things are always funnier when you have interesting characters. Well, no I think a Jell-Oed stapler is just funnier than and deep-fried desk lamp regardless of who the characters are.
FOX has this huge hit with American Idol. Yeah, I don't really get it myself, but I can't deny that it is a huge ratings success, drawing in lots of ad revenue and as a reality show, I'm assuming it has low production costs. Why not let some of this cash subsidize a TV show that is actually trying to tell a story that's a season long? Currently showing at MoMA is Contemporary Voices: Works from The UBS Art Collection. UBS is an investment bank and assest management firm, but yet they see it worthwhile to subsidize the arts. Why can't a ratings generation company like FOX do the same? Oh, that's right they are. Stacked with Pamela Anderson is coming soon to a television far away from me. At least I can take comfort in knowing that it won't last very long.
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