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Favorite early cancelled TV series

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Because I am of the female persuasion, it is My So-Called Life.

Actually, as neither a woman nor a gay, I'm going to agree with this. It's a guilty pleasure but it is so good.

Ricky: It's really clear what that song was about.

Jordan: Yeah, my car.

:clap:

Anyway, aside from that and the previously mentioned Carnivale and Space Western in Space with Cowboys. In Space, I'm going to put Deadwood forward.

It features fucking Lovejoy as the murdering propietor of a sleazy brothel :tup:

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Second Bakersfield PD. Furthermore, American Gothic.

I didn't like Invader Zim so much. I love Vasquez's comics, but his style translates to a very shrieky cartoon. The production values were great, though, and they did capture the feeling of Squee well.

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Am I the ONLY PERSON on the internet who thinks that Firefly is horrendously overrated and I can kinda see why they didn't renew it? I'm not saying I disliked it - in fact, I kinda enjoyed most episodes - but I never EVER felt like 'Oh man, I want to watch the next one right now!'

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I always bring this one up but Brimstone. Peter Horton as a resurrected cop tasked with sending demons back to hell.

Totally cornball. Totally awesome.

Ahahah, yeah, I watched that show! Good fun.

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Am I the ONLY PERSON on the internet who thinks that Firefly is horrendously overrated and I can kinda see why they didn't renew it? I'm not saying I disliked it - in fact, I kinda enjoyed most episodes - but I never EVER felt like 'Oh man, I want to watch the next one right now!'

I'm sure there are ten or so of you.

I didn't like Buffy or Angel much, but I thought everything about Firefly was excellent. Sharp writing, great acting (from most of the regulars at least, and no real weak links), interesting fleshed-out universe and backstories.

It didn't just not get renewed, it got cancelled after 7 or so episodes, which is a massive shame, especially when drek like Warehouse 13 gets season after season.

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Apparently that was the original idea though; for it to run indefinitely like a soap opera, but with the supernatural stuff it alludes to and David Lynch's sublime sense of the weird and funny. Unfortunately, the later directors failed to reproduce that, and the first plotline was such a major piece of structure it just, as you say, is a writeoff without it.

Not sure where you heard that. The original idea actually sprung out of a biopic on Marilyn Monroe that Lynch and Frost were working on, based on the book, "Goddess". It's unclear how far they got with that, but it never happened, and the idea evolved into Laura Palmer: The perfect prom queen with dark secrets.

Lynch never wanted to resolve the murder, but Frost and ABC felt that the show couldn't continue forever with an unsolved murder mystery -- and ABC really wanted to push it because they knew it's what people wanted. (I remember Frost saying something along the lines of, "Gee, let's tune in this week to still not find out who killed Laura Palmer".)

So for the second season they set about starting to resolve it, and Lynch began to lose interest in the project, and drifted away.

Additional problems hit the second season when the Cooper/Audrey storyline was nixed by Kyle MacLachlan, meaning that a ton of lacklustre B and C stories suddenly got promoted to major A stories. According to what I've read, he was against it because he felt an upstanding FBI agent like Cooper wouldn't ever get involved with such a young girl.

Rumours abounded that it was actually because of pressure from his then girlfriend, Lara Flynn Boyle, and indeed, Cooper's later love interest, Annie (Heather Graham), was pretty much the same age (18) -- this time with no protests from MacLachlan.

It was never the original plan for it to be ongoing soap opera with loads of different mysteries, and indeed one of the weakest aspects of the second season was the lame reason they came up with to keep Cooper in the town.

When Lynch got to make his movie, he went straight back to the part of the show he loved the most: Laura Palmer's story.

Frost has since admitted that it was a mistake to reveal the killer, and that Lynch turned out to be right.

It's true that the directors that came in for Season 2 ended up making the show more of a parody of itself, though. According to my ex, they would just come in and try to think of "kooky" things to do with the camera for the sheer sake of it -- as if that's all Twin Peaks was.

As I say, I think the LOST folk got to learn from the mistakes of Twin Peaks, and instead of resolving the central mystery, they tried adding new mysteries, which worked brilliantly for most people.

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I also wish there was a 3rd season for Carnivàle.

However, since the original plan was to go all the way to 6, maybe it's better that way. Not that I distrust the writer, but TV series tend to up the ante each season and end up in places they shouldn't have gone. For Carnivale, it probably would have translated to a 6th season dealing with wrapping up supernatural battles and massive conspiracy theories.:shifty:

What I like in this series was the humble beginnings, the tragic characters, the dust bowl setting and the "wonder for reason trade" idea that was never really discussed. I don't think they could have maintain the modest scale which would allow to explore those after the avatars became aware of their destinies and the templars showed up.

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Am I the ONLY PERSON on the internet who thinks that Firefly is horrendously overrated and I can kinda see why they didn't renew it? I'm not saying I disliked it - in fact, I kinda enjoyed most episodes - but I never EVER felt like 'Oh man, I want to watch the next one right now!'

Yes, and you should kill yourself because of this.

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It would have been better if it just ended when they finish the case with Laura Palmer's murder but I still think Lynch would have been able to redeem the show somehow.

Absolutely, it feels very different without him at the helm. Whenever the other directors try to do one of Twin Peaks funny, strange, inconsequential moments, it feels like arbitrary disjointed weirdness. When Lynch does it, it either defines a character a bit more (bing), or seems like something completely natural that's emphasised or shown a different way (the long shot entering the police station, where

absolutely everyone the camera moves past is stuffing their face with something or other

). He does it kind of seamlessly.

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Am I the ONLY PERSON on the internet who thinks that Firefly is horrendously overrated and I can kinda see why they didn't renew it? I'm not saying I disliked it - in fact, I kinda enjoyed most episodes - but I never EVER felt like 'Oh man, I want to watch the next one right now!'

I agree with you, though I disliked most episodes. The acting was unpalatable.

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Absolutely, it feels very different without him at the helm. Whenever the other directors try to do one of Twin Peaks funny, strange, inconsequential moments, it feels like arbitrary disjointed weirdness. When Lynch does it, it either defines a character a bit more (bing), or seems like something completely natural that's emphasised or shown a different way (the long shot entering the police station, where

absolutely everyone the camera moves past is stuffing their face with something or other

). He does it kind of seamlessly.

To be fair to everyone else on Twin Peaks, Lynch and Frost set the tone. If Laura Palmer came from Lynch, then I'm pretty sure that Cooper came from Frost (at least judging from his other works). Frost may have directed of the first season episode like an episode of Dallas, but the rest of the directors did great jobs, I think.

Lynch is a guy who falls in love with ideas, he's not a guy to work on a TV show and come up with new stuff to a deadline. He's an artist. When the Palmer story concluded, he lost interest, although I think he was still in love with the place and the characters.

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Speaking of Dollhouse, how do people feel about Season 2? Whedon fell into the same situation with Fox that he did with Firefly: The network suddenly decided they didn't want the show he'd pitched, after all. Apparently they were so not paying attention that they wanted to turn it into a procedural without sex in it, which given the premise is damned retarded.

Anyways, I felt Season one had a VERY rocky start, but later found its feet. So did Season two continue that, or did it get rocky again? The reason I ask is that I'm considering rewatching the show and finishing it this time, but I hated the first few episodes so much (although they're well made), that I want to make sure it's worth it.

Orvidos, what say you?

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Dollhouse gets much better throughout season one, and explores some really interesting things. Unfortunately, the last episode of that series plumps for a sci-fi trope I really hate*, but overall I enjoyed it. I'm only two episodes into season 2, but it seems to be picking up the more interesting aspects of season 1.

*

That something apocalyptic is required to push things onward. That apocalypse is the only way to achieve revelation, and something more extreme of course means more character development. That when something major happens, the human race descends into FUTURE WAR, rather than finding a different status quo.

Not-very-thought-out-rant:

As if, in general rather than specific geographic contexts, humans' motive to live somewhat peaceably is really that fragile. Most people are never willing to fight, and if something could change a character or person's willingness in that respect, sudden apocalypse tends to jump straight to the end of that development rather than showing the interesting parts. It goes straight for LUSCIOUS SQUALOR.

The whole conceit of "Hey, wouldn't it be really interesting if we showed everything, but different, and stuff had really changed for everyone, and they're all FUTURE SOLDIERS?" kind of implies that what the writers built in the first place wasn't very interesting.

The ancient greek word that apocalypse is derived from actually meant "revelation" or "lifting of the veil". In modern times, it just means destruction of the world though. In terms of characters, these world-ending scenarios rarely show anything deep or new about characters, and certainly not anything that couldn't be shown without the world having to end. "THE CITY OF YOU, THE VIEWER, BUT BURNING" is a cheap schtick that, even with a large dollop of twenty-first century CGI thrown in, reminds me of 1950s B-Movie trailers.

When I was in my late teens, desocialised, working shitty jobs and feeling like the world had nothing for me, I really enjoyed apocaphilia. The imagery dovetailed with all of the generalised hostility I felt for nearly everything outside of me, and in turn, fed it.

I found things I loved and grew out of that though, and that's a thing that nothing in TV/film end of the world scenarios ever seems to align with or say anything to. Apocalypse imagery strikes me as fan service, to something in us that's actually quite ugly. It's a shorthand for drama in the absence of it. It's an excuse to get out the JUICY GUNS and DECAY. It's reminiscent of gratuitous sex scenes. It rarely does anything worthwhile, interesting, or new, and it speaks to the worst parts of us.

Edited by Nachimir

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Interesting thoughts, Nachimir. I haven't ever considered the apocalypse in that regard as a narrative construct, but am willing to co-opt your views on it for the time being. They sound sound.

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I loved Epitaph. I thought they did a great job doing something interesting with the premise. *shrugs* As unrealistic as they may be, I'm a fan of post-apocalyptic settings. I'm not particularly unhappy in my life at all, or angry with the world.

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I also liked Season 1 towards the end, but IIRC I thought Season 2 was a bit rubbish and a huge let down after what it took to give Whedon the possibility to do it.

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Clone High

XdCzi236mcU

A Canada/USA co-production between Teletoon, and MTV. Season 2 was was canceled due to controversy over the depiction of Gandhi (a teenage clone of Mahatma Gandhi). In Canada the full first season was aired and Teletoon green lit the second season, but sadly, the show was pulled by MTV in the US, they never aired the last 5 episodes, and the show died.

Controversy as explained by Wikipedia...

"An article in Maxim Magazine depicting Mahatma Gandhi getting beat up by a muscular man sparked outrage in India. Clone High was caught in a crossfire when citizens in the country conducted internet searches on the Maxim article but also found out about the show's Gandhi character on MTV's website. This sparked an outrage in India over the show's depiction of Gandhi. On January 30, 2003, the 55th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination, approximately 150 protesters (including members of parliament) gathered in New Delhi and vowed to fast in response to Clone High. MTV offered a quick apology, stating that "Clone High was created and intended for an American audience," and, "We recognize and respect that various cultures may view this programming differently, and we regret any offense taken by the content in the show." "

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I also liked Season 1 towards the end, but IIRC I thought Season 2 was a bit rubbish and a huge let down after what it took to give Whedon the possibility to do it.

Season 2 started off really great, but due to them being cancelled, I heard Whedon tried to shoehorn 3 seasons of character development into the second half of season 2, which was unpleasant to some degree.

After the drought of actual narrative in season 1, it seems weird to complain about the opposite. But it was definitely not up to par.

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Re: Dollhouse:

While I agree in principle that apocalypse-as-world's-end is overused, I thought it fit Dollhouse well. I liked the sense, following the tradition of literary science fiction, of introducing a new technology and extrapolating the possible uses of it, how it could fundamentally alter the world (and destroy it). While I don't think Epitaph One is the strongest episode on its own, I think it gives a great narrative momentum to season two--the sense of rushing headlong toward destruction, the dramatic irony of the audience knowing where all this is going while the characters only figure it out bit by bit. I think what sells the apocalypse to me in Dollhouse is that it isn't an instantaneous transformation--season two is all about how the pieces move into place for getting us to that future.

It also helps that the specific dystopia of Dollhouse is incredibly terrifying to me, even if in a lot of ways it's just a zombie apocalypse with different set dressing.

Plus Dollhouse is such a great literalization of so many things that are incredibly important but almost never discussed in mainstream culture--the fluidity of identity construction and how modern identity construction is bound up with the logic of patriarchy and capitalism (in particular wage labor)--that I can never look at it too negatively.

I rewatched it earlier this year and I think it works much better when you know where everything is going (and when you can skip the terrible early episodes that are irrelevant to the main ideas :shifty:)--I enjoyed it the first time through, especially season two, but rewatching it now, whether with the context of the full show in my head or due to the way the world or I have changed in just the few years since it originally aired, it felt much more relevant and powerful.

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I was upset with Dollhouse because the beginning sucked so much. (And the aforementioned Dushku hate didn't help, either. Seriously, she's awful. Stop using her, Mr. Whedon.)

But the ending redeemed everything that happened prior. I can't pinpoint why, exactly, but I loved it.

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Sounds like the general consensus is that I should battle through the miserable (and not to mention, absurdly dark -- doesn't anyone just want to pay to have sex with Eliza Dushku?? Every story in the early episodes involved something like child torture, twisted murder, suicide/murder pacts, etc. etc. Where were the normal people??) early episodes to get to the good stuff.

Thanks, everyone.

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doesn't anyone just want to pay to have sex with Eliza Dushku?? Every story in the early episodes involved something like child torture, twisted murder, suicide/murder pacts, etc. etc. Where were the normal people??

With that voice? Hell no!

On a more serious note: I generally take these kinds of happenings as out of the ordinary. I don't recall Dollhouse's episodes being on a day-to-day basis (although I may be wrong), so the "normal" stuff just happens when we don't see it. Whether or not that makes for good storytelling is probably up to how the writers actually handle it, but yeah.

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One day (when I have infinite time on my hands and nothing better to do) I would like to edit Twin Peaks down to a more coherent experience. Some of the Black Lodge stuff near the end and the wacky cliffhanger might be salvageable and made coherent—but most of the second half of second season (especially the insipid runaway love story) is throwaway nonsense.

It might not end up requiring a lot of editing either... Maybe just a long cap episode to be watched instead of the last so many episodes.

Naturally, this will be super illegal and I am looking forward to getting assassinated by some IP industrial complex paramilitary for even thinking about it. :tup:

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