Some TV shows seem like they are a shoe-in for success, and then suddenly the audience everyone thought would be there, isn’t. Just how does it all go so very wrong?
Programming network TV is certainly not an easy job. There is no magic formula. There are shows like My So Called Life, Firefly, and Veronica Mars that were cancelled way too fast, and now have devoted cult followings. On the other hand, there are shows like The Crazy Ones, that everyone thought would be amazing, and somehow, despite a cast that included Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar, that never find a loyal following.
Let’s take a look back at some shows from the 2013-2014 season that Hypable staff members were really excited for, and then sadly were let down. Here’s our look from the fan’s perspective of what went wrong.
‘Intelligence’
How could something with two dynamic actors with huge fan followings go so wrong so quickly? Josh Holloway, who played the charismatic bad boy Sawyer on LOST, was to play something of a modernized Six-Million Dollar Man named Gabriel Vaughn. Meghan Ory, Red/Ruby from Once Upon a Time, played FBI agent Riley Neal, who was charged with keeping Vaughan safe. Ory became available when the lead writers of Once Upon a Time inexplicably left Red/Ruby out of major plot lines in season 2, and Ory wasn’t renewed at the beginning of series 3.
What should have been a path to success, the sexy sarcasm of Holloway coupled with Ory’s wry, told-you-so looks, fell flat. The chemistry just wasn’t there. Additionally, the show’s technology, while visually fun and unique, couldn’t make up for plot lines that were alternatively hard to follow, far-fetched, and down right uninteresting. What seemed like a no-brainer, runaway hit when it was screened at Comic-Con, went into exponential decay in just a few episodes. – Laura Byrne-Cristiano
‘Ravenswood’
Ravenswood should have been a sure thing when it debuted as a spin-off of Pretty Little Liars. The spin-off premiered with solid ratings during last fall, but struggled to gain traction for the remainder of its 10-episode run. Featuring Caleb, Hannah’s boyfriend, as one of the cursed five in the fictional town of Ravenswood, it had plenty of potential. The show never transitioned into something that could stand on its own without the Pretty Little Liars lead in. Ravenswood failed to live up to its potential like so many spinoffs do. Fans of the show hope to see Caleb back on Pretty Little Liars now that his trip to Ravenswood is done. – Jennifer Lamoureux
‘Once Upon a Time in Wonderland’
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland had all the potential of Once Upon a Time and more. Not only would the creators be able to start over with a new set of characters and circumstances, thereby avoiding the pitfalls they ran into with the original show, but by focusing on the whimsical world of Wonderland, they could practically do anything they wanted.
Unfortunately, putting that theory to practice was harder than it seemed at first glance. While Wonderland definitely had its high points, its low points were too distracting to keep this show afloat for me. As excited as I was by the pilot and the strong entrance of one of the most well known characters in literature, the mashup of fairytales felt like a second rate Once Upon a Time, not a spinoff from the same showrunners. With poor CGI and a story that took until the final few episodes to really take hold, Wonderland was a show that had potential on which it just couldn’t deliver. -Karen Rought
‘Sean Saves the World’
The bell has tolled for Thursday night comedy on NBC. Following a whirlwind of cancellations, Thursday night comedies will not surface again on the network until 2015. One of the fallen soldiers, stared a former veteran of the glory days of the NBC comedy block, Sean Hayes. Sean Saves the World took a stab at telling the adventures of a single gay father raising his daughter among a crazy combination of co-workers and his crazy mother. Linda Lavin, perfectly cast as Sean’s mother, was not able to save the show from the laugh track reliant comedy the rest of the show clung to for dear life.
Will & Grace vet Hayes and Smash star Megan Hilty proved their chemistry in the later’s final season and I was looking forward to having them back together on screen. Mix in the sass of Linda Lavin and the proven comedic prowess of Thomas Lennon and the show’s prime 9:00 pm Thursday slot gave the illusion a perfect storm was brewing. However, what worked for Will & Grace in the early 2000s did not hold true for Sean Saves the World a decade later. The sitcom is due for a major network comeback, but unfortunately the cast could not pull together the perfect balance of physical and verbal comedy to convince audiences that time is now. -Brittany Lovely
‘The Tomorrow People’
Amell Wednesdays promised to be a night to celebrate on the CW with Arrow at 8:00 pm and then The Tomorrow People at 9:00 pm. Arrow’s second season was paired with a freshman drama with a lot of promise. Unfortunately, The Tomorrow People fell short of expectations long before its cancellation. Despite the interesting premise, the series fell victim to a bland protagonist, an unnecessary and distracting love triangle, and a two-dimensional villain. What could have been a fun series that played with genre tropes in original ways instead took the well-tread route of so many young adult stories before it and lost this viewer within the first third of the season. – Caitlin Kelly