Head Cases

Part of me is sad. Less than 24 hours from now, I will most likely have seen Serenity, and instead of thinking about how great it will be to see the gang from Firefly again, it's got me thinking about how FOX cancelled it. Not being a contributor to political campaigns, it is rare that I spend my "money as speech" dollars. When I buy my ticket, I'll saying "FOX, you screwed up," much like I did went I put the DVD of Firefly on my Christmas list. And I see it's less than a month before the DVD of Point Pleasant comes out and I can see the end of that cliffhanger that was bumped when the American Idol phone lines got screwed up and they had to redo.

FOX takes the title of the first network to cancel a show this season, with the dismissal of Head Cases, after only two episodes. NBC won it last year for Hawaii which lasted six. But no one complains when NBC cancels a series. Wait, maybe I complained about the cancellation of Law & Order: Trial By Jury, I forget. Anyway, Head Cases's IMDb board is filled with guys ranting about how FOX has done it again. I must say though, that show looked terrible. I didn't see either episode, but two lawyers who met in an mental institution? C'mon, it's like parody of a TV show. It's what agents get fired for. I say this is one to congratulate them on.

As I've said before, it's hard to know what to do with FOX. They do seem to greenlight great shows at a much higher rate than the other networks. Indeed, I was prompted to check and see if Head Cases had been cancelled because I watched a lot of FOX this week, and I didn't remember seeing a commercial for it. Other than Head Cases and the alleged sit-com The War at Home (No one can carry a sit-com like Michael Rappaport.), I think I've seen all the other new shows on FOX this fall, and I like all of them:

• David Boreanaz's new show Bones, is just okay, but so far, I've found it worth watching. There is bad stuff in it, it has some redeeming qualities too.
  
• Congratulations to the producers (a "consulting" one is Marti Noxon) of Prison Break, which I see just got a few more episodes picked up. I like it a lot.
  
• Tonight gave us new Reunion and told us one more of the friends who is still alive. I love this wealth of shows with season long plots. Seriously, could this be the influence of reality TV? It's like someone said, "I like this idea of having a competition last an entire season. I wonder if we could script something like that."
  
• I've also really enjoyed new half-hour show Kitchen Confidential.
  
• I even watched the Jerry Bruckheimer show Killer Instinct about a detective in the San Francisco "Deviant Crimes Unit" (They're running out of names for those units.) for the sole purpose of being able to blog about how it was crap and how it made no since to replace The Inside with a poor copy of it. And I would have written that post were it not for the last two scenes. I think there could be something to this show. Maybe it's not that great, but it definitely surpassed my low expectations, and I'll give it another shot.