Sunday, July 5, 2015

A Look Back at my 2014-2015 Cancellation Predictions

I’ve decided to post a look back on what I thought would be cancelled from last season. You can read what the predictions were in a previous blog post. I’m not sure anybody read that blog post, but I’ve decided to post this anyways. What did I get right? What did I miss entirely? Let’s take a look, shall we? I will only mention shows that were cancelled and I’ll ignore any shows that weren’t cancelled, even if I thought that they would be. But since I care, I might as well mention what I thought would be cancelled that was and what was cancelled that I didn’t think would be.

Stuff I got right: Utopia, Mulaney, Manhattan Love Story, Marry Me, Forever, Stalker, The McCarthys, Bad Judge, State of Affairs, Cristela, Battle Creek, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt *, The Mentalist, Weird Loners, CSI, Two and a Half Men, Parks and Recreation, Parenthood, Glee, Hieroglyph, Hart of Dixie

Utopia- I figured that this show probably wouldn’t last due to general lack of interest in reality shows. It wasn’t really a competition of any sort so I’m not sure if it would have lasted if it was. It sounded just too uninteresting in the long term for me to think it would get enough viewers.

Mulaney- This show seemed bad to me from the beginning. It was even unofficially cancelled a long time before it actually was cancelled officially. A lot of people didn’t like it in the end so it only made sense that it ended. The main reason that I picked it for cancellation is that normally if a show’s promos make it look bad, then the show will be bad.

Manhattan Love Story- I’m not entirely sure why I picked this as a probably cancelled show, but I was right. It was, in fact, the very first cancelled show of the season. But there was something about it that I thought would make it fail and I was actually right in the end. It must have just been the overall strangeness about the show.

Marry Me- This show was only in my predictions due to its bad title. One wouldn’t believe just how often that alone can be an indicator to a show’s future, although that logic tends to have a 50% success rate on what I’ve seen thus far.

Forever- I compared this to another show, New Amsterdam. If you’ve never heard of that show, it would explain why Forever, which had a similar theme, also failed (although Forever lasted longer). Basically, like shows with bad titles, supernatural type shows are probably getting cancelled, although that type of show (supernatural) is probably even more likely.

Stalker- This show got very negative reception which is the biggest type of indicator that a show will get cancelled in the end. While it wasn’t as soon as some people thought it would be, it definitely helped prevent it from succeeding.

The McCarthys- My own negative impression of this show is why I thought that it would get cancelled. I didn’t see much hope for it and neither did CBS. They got rid of it long before it finished airing although it took them a while to admit that the show was in fact cancelled.

Bad Judge- While I actually liked this show in a way, I figured that with the negative reception that it was getting, coupled with its bad title, it would probably not last that long. I don’t know how many people would dislike it, but they did and it ended.

State of Affairs- A lot of people hate Katherine Heigl, who played the lead in this show. That is probably a reason that this show failed. I might have wanted to see it at some point, but I never did see it in the end. It must have been the highly competitive timeslot that helped kill it, although it was mostly just low ratings that killed it.

Cristela- For reasons I couldn’t explain, I thought that it would get cancelled. After it aired, I saw just how bad it was and how the only funny person in the show (Gabriel Igneous) was totally wasted. Also, it airing on Friday nights wasn’t going to do it any favors.

Battle Creek- There were a lot of signs that this show was going to get cancelled. When they decided to put it at the absolute worst timeslot in the history of CBS (10/9 Central on Sundays, a timeslot so cursed, I should give it its own blog post and/or list on www.imdb.com to show how screwed a show is at this timeslot) they were pretty much saying that it would get cancelled. While other midseason shows on CBS somehow survived when they previously hadn’t, this show was one of many before it (and some that will come still later) that were doomed.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt- Well, this show wasn’t actually cancelled in the traditional sense. You see, it was supposed to air on NBC but then moved to Netflix. It will survive on Netflix. I thought that the bad title alone would get it cancelled. I’m also disappointed that I won’t be able to watch the show now when I probably would have if it stayed on network television.

The Mentalist- It wasn’t long before the season started that we learned that the Mentalist would be having its final season this season. Since it shouldn’t have even been renewed for another season in the first place due to its terrible ratings and the sheer renewal of other shows on CBS, I knew that it would probably be cancelled during this season and I was right.

Weird Loners- While I missed a lot of the midseason shows in my prediction list, this was one that I got right. How? I noticed that it had a bad title. While I never actually saw the show in the end, it did look bad enough that it wouldn’t last anyways. Also, does FOX really need its own version of Undateable? It seemed unnecessary to me.

CSI- Like the other two CSIs that were cancelled before it, I knew that this one was going to get cancelled ahead of time with CBS’s track record of the already mentioned 10/9 Central on Sundays timeslot. That timeslot is so cursed that if 60 Minutes aired at that time, it too would get cancelled. A lot of warning signs blared loudly as they lowered the episode count for the season and seemingly burned off episodes as it went along. I only didn’t know if CSI would be cancelled at the end of the season or they would have thought that CSI: Cyber would have been a more huge failure. I knew that it wouldn’t be both so I was right when this got cancelled.

Two and a Half Men- Since they announced at the beginning of the season that the show would end this season, then it was automatically on the list of my shows to get cancelled. The show wasn’t well received by some people and got worse as time went on even as it continued to air and lost one and a half of its men. Ultimately, CBS decided to cut its losses and end the show.

Parks and Recreation- For reasons that I didn’t understand, they said that this show was ending this season. Maybe it wasn’t as popular as I thought that it was. Well, it could have been popular, just not with the viewers as much as it should have been.

Parenthood- This show was lowly rated and kept getting renewed. I knew that such a thing wouldn’t last forever. When they announced that it would in fact end, it only made sense for me to put it on the list since to do otherwise, I would be wrong about an officially cancelled show.

Glee- Also, like a lot of shows that I just now mentioned, it was cancelled ahead of time so I knew that it would get cancelled this season. With it already cancelled, I put it on my list since, well, it was going to end. Why get it wrong?

Hieroglyph- Some people think that it actually was part of last season’s shows even though this was supposed to air this season before it was cancelled before it aired. Since it was already cancelled, I decided that I would add it to the list since to do otherwise is like betting against the Harlem Globetrotters.

Hart of Dixie- When this was moved to midseason after being on other the schedule earlier, a lot of warning signs that it would end were coming up. Now when the CW renewed almost every show and this show wasn’t part of its renewal, that was a dead giveaway that the show would end.

Stuff I got wrong: Emerald City *, The Messengers, Cedric’s Barber Battle, Constantine, One Big Happy, Resurrection, About a Boy, Backstrom, The Following, The Mindy Project *, The Messengers, A to Z, Selfie, The Millers, Gracepoint, Allegiance, Members Only, Mission Control, Revenge, Taxi Brooklyn

Emerald City- Well, this show will actually be part of next season. They cancelled it at one point but then decided that it will be part of next season. All of this happened before the show even aired. I didn’t think that it would be cancelled.

The Messengers- This was part of my failure to mention much, if any, of the midseason shows. Had I known that it would premiere as late as it did, then I definitely would have had it with the cancelled shows. But I didn’t think it would be cancelled so I was wrong about it.

Cedric’s Barber Battle- Okay, you’ll have to cut me some slack on this one. Why? It was never announced ahead of time that it would be part of the schedule. So I couldn’t have possibly known that it would have been cancelled if I didn’t even know it was going to exist. Meanwhile, you may wonder if it actually is cancelled and there’s a possibility that it isn’t, but I don’t think that it’s a high possibility.

Constantine- This sounds easy to have predicted in retrospect. But I didn’t think that this type of supernatural show, something that tends to be short-lived that would actually be cancelled. So I was wrong about this cancellation, but I’ll probably do better next time.

One Big Happy- I’m not sure that I would have had this on my prediction list should I have remembered to have more midseason shows on it. But since the New Normal failed, then this probably should have tipped me off as also going to fail.

Resurrection- What’s interesting is that in my last season’s predictions, this was on this list, but it wasn’t cancelled. Now I should have probably remembered that going into the next season, but I didn’t think of that. So I was wrong both times in a way.

About a Boy- This, following the conclusion of Parks and Recreation, might have been NBC’s longest running comedy at one point despite its short time on the air. I didn’t know why I didn’t think that it would be cancelled, but I was wrong about a lot of shows so it makes sense that this was one of the shows that I was wrong about.

Backstrom- Along with a lot of other midseason shows, I didn’t do predictions about them even though I should have. After seeing promos for it, I probably would have predicted it as cancelled even though it is the type of show that fits right with its demographic.

The Following- Normally shows in their third seasons are probably getting renewed despite poor ratings. That isn’t always the case though and only works if all three season had enough episodes in the first place which was not the case with this show. I’ll do a post about that in the future (hopefully) while I ramble on instead of just admitting that I got this wrong. Or you can tweet the cancellation bear about the so called syndication gods.

The Mindy Project- While this show was cancelled from FOX, it will go on for future seasons on Hulu. I didn’t think that it would be cancelled so I was wrong about this prediction. Since it is no longer on network television, I will no longer make predictions about it as I can’t watch almost any show on a long term basis that’s not on network TV. My TV is free.

The Messengers- CW midseason shows tend to have a toss-up rate of half and half of whether or not they will get renewed for another season. With only two announced midseason shows for the season, I wrongly thought that the other one (iZombie) would be the failure. This show premiered way too late to be a success on any network.

A to Z- This show seemingly only failed due to its pairing with a badly reviewed comedy. Since NBC sitcoms have been doing terribly lately, this should come as no surprise to being cancelled, but I didn’t think of that going into the season.

Selfie- This is another show that seemingly failed due to being paired with a more terrible show. After the first cancellation of the season, this show was left by itself for a while before being cancelled itself. I didn’t think it would be cancelled although, in retrospect of course, it is easier to see that an uninteresting show like this would probably fail.

The Millers- Since the cancellation of this show came as a shock to many people, then it is not entirely surprising that I’m one of those people who was surprised. I didn’t see it coming, although I could have guessed it if it were cancelled last year.

Gracepoint- I somehow missed the fact that this is an American adaptation of a foreign hit, a formula that almost always failed. I don’t know how I missed this honestly. But I didn’t, although it ended. I might have been interested in it, but never saw it.

Allegiance- Once again, my failure to predict much of the midseason shows means that I missed another show that would be cancelled. Also, this was adapted from a foreign show as well thus spelling other possible problems for the show. Many compared it unfavorably to the Americans, although I’ve never heard of the American and will probably never watch it because I liked this show.

Members Only- This show never even aired in the first place. I don’t know how I missed it in my predictions, although, to be fair, it probably wouldn’t have been on the list in the first place (as evident by the fact that I was wrong about it being cancelled).

Mission Control- This show never aired either. I didn’t think that it would be cancelled and it was. So this is another show that I was wrong about, although I’m running out of different ways of saying that I was wrong about predicting a show’s cancellation.

Revenge- I could have watched this at one point but never did. Some people complained that it should have been a shorter series than it was. Ultimately, they were probably the reason that the show had low ratings and ended this season, although I think that the writers of the show figured it out beforehand. The point is: I was wrong about it when I didn’t think that it would be cancelled.

Taxi Brooklyn- With this being a summer series, there was probably no way that I would have predicted it as cancelled in a traditional sense as I normally don’t predict summer series as cancelled or not depending on whether or not it was supposed to be on the schedule sooner or not.


Well, I hope that this covers all the shows that were cancelled last season. I hope that I’m more right about what shows get cancelled in the future. In fact, I’ll be doing my prediction of cancellations for the next season sometime before the shows start. This is what I got right and what I got wrong regarding cancellations. Any summer shows are typically ignored and some of them still haven’t been cancelled even though they aren’t coming back. But I’ll have a long post on the cancelled shows sometime later. I just need to finish writing it first.

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