My Take on Pilot Season: Returning (and Not Returning) Shows

Yeaaaaaa to NBC for renewing Chuck!!! If only the network would please now order more than 13 episodes and bring it back before mid-season. (Ugh, I just noticed that Chuck's official NBC Web site now says that Chuck will return in March 2010. That's horrendous.) Seriously, we have to sit though another painful cycle of Heroes before our weary eyes will again behold the sheer awesomeness that is Chuck? That's just mean.

Yeaaaaaa to FOX for renewing Dollhouse!!! I didn't see that one coming at all. After years of watching quirky and/or complicated show after quirky and/or complicated show get summarily dismissed by virtually every network, it just seemed so bizarre that this one didn't get the heave-ho too. Good for FOX for taking a chance on it. At the very least, Dollhouse will have a small but devoted fanbase next season, which is more than some new shows will garner. Perhaps Dollhouse will even meet with some increased commercial success. The fact that the show was steadily increasing in quality after a lackluster beginning should help. I just hope that Mellie and Victor will get to come back.

After those two announcements, I began to develop the sinking feeling that Upfronts and pilot season were going far too well, and sure enough:

Major boooooooooooooooooooooo to ABC for cancelling Samantha Who? There is NO REASON why this show needed to be canceled. Sure, its audience wasn't great when ABC began jerking it all around the schedule and forcing it into abrupt hiatuses. What show's ratings would survive that kind of cruel Men In Trees-esque treatment? What makes the cancellations more upsetting is that Sam Who? is not really a niche-based show. It had fairly broad appeal, which it demonstrated when it pulled some big numbers leading out of Dancing With the Stars. Christina Applegate is one of the most likable women on TV and the supporting cast was hilarious. The only reason this show had issues was that ABC didn't seem to know what to do with it, which is astounding, because all they had to do was leave it on after DWTS. There's no need to try to make Surviving Suburbia happen at the expense of Sam Who? Any network that airs According to Jim for eight seasons but cancels quality comedies like Sam Who? after two (abridged) seasons, needs to do some serious atoning.

(photos: NBC.com; ABC.com)