Why do good TV shows get cancelled?
It’s a question people have asked for decades. Why does “Friends” last 10 years while “Arrested Development” was cancelled after two-and-a-half? Why did hilarious comedies such as “Police Squad!” “The Tick” or “Andy Richter Controls the Universe” disappear after only a handful of episodes while “According to Jim” ran eight seasons?
The question comes up again as CBC’s “Michael: Tuesdays & Thursdays” comes to the end of its first and possibly final season. The season-ender airs Tuesday at 9 p.m. Hailed by critics as the best new comedy of the year, it has struggled in the ratings, falling below 200,000 viewers in recent weeks.
The fate of “Michael” stands in sharp contrast to “Two and a Half Men,” still the No. 1 comedy in the U.S. in its ninth season. The switch in lead actors from Charlie Sheen to Ashton Kutcher brought tremendous publicity and a record-breaking opening week audience – as well as many negative reviews from critics – but it has remained an enormous draw.
The series scored 2.5 million viewers a few weeks ago on CTV – 10 times the average weekly audience for “Michael” on CBC this season.
What makes the difference when it comes to making a TV comedy stick? Here are some possibilities:
1. Title is key. Clarity and simplicity are everything. Everybody knows what “Two and a Half Men” is about. Same with “New Girl” and “2 Broke Girls,” two breakthrough shows this season. “Modern Family” is about a modern, extended family that reaches beyond the perimeters of the old fashioned nuclear family. In a 500 channel universe, a title that is ambiguous, such as “Arrested Development” or “Michael: Tuesdays & Thursdays,” can languish undiscovered.
Look at the hit reality shows today on specialty channels, shows like “Canada’s Worst Driver.” The more people who get the title, the more who may watch the series.
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Another show that is in trouble, “Cougar Town” (ABC has cut its order back to 15 episodes before it even returns in mid-season), wears its title like a curse. While it began as a series about Courteney Cox as a single woman in her 40s looking for love, it quickly became more about her relationship with her friends -almost “Friends” in their 40s.
Executive producer Bill Lawrence admits the title is a big turn off for some viewers (the producers even mock the title each week, running what amounts to a disclaimer whenever the title appears). He says to get a network to pick up a show these days, however, you have to “sell stupid” in order to “make smart.” By simply pitching “Courteney Cox in Cougar Town” he was able to sell a show. If he had pitched the show he wanted to make – “Courteney Cox and the Cul-de-sac Crew,” it would never have been picked up.
2. To hit the widest target, aim low. There is a viral video on YouTube which is simply a collection of clips of characters saying “penis” and “vagina” on today’s top TV comedies. Crude jokes abound on popular shows like “Two and a Half Men,” “2 Broke Girls” and Whitney.”
On the other hand, “Michael Tuesdays & Thursdays” may be too smart for the room. The relationship between the shrink (Bob Martin) and his twice-a-week patient Michael (Matt Watts) is nuanced and revelatory – two words that would get a series creator kicked out of a network meeting.
3. Which brings us to right show, wrong network. “Michael Tuesdays & Thursdays” might flourish on HBO or HBO Canada, a network where viewers pay a premium to seek out smarter, more challenging fare. “Michael” would look right at home following “In Treatment” or “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
NBC recently announced they were shelving “Community” come the new year. That whip-smart comedy slams meta-humour and pop-culture references into the flimsiest of premises: seven very diverse community college students share a weekly study group. It’s really a sketch series disguised as a sitcom, which might make it less “sticky” for some viewers more drawn in to character.
Fourth-rated NBC doesn’t have the viewers to make that challenging premise stand. More viewers would have discovered it on, say, CBS following “The Big Bang Theory” – but who wouldn’t kill for that time slot.
CBC has clung to “boutique” shows in the past and officials there are keen to keep “Michael” on their schedule. The creators of the series, Martin and Don McKellar, have been told to not worry about numbers for now. Even the CBC, however, is in the business of delivering audiences to advertisers.
4. Which brings us to right network, wrong time slot. The network has had some discussions recently about re-testing “Michael” over the summer – perhaps in a later time slot. “Michael” at 11:05 p.m. – a time slot where “George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight” occasionally opens to 200,000 viewers – might bring the right show to the right audience at a level everybody can live with.
5. Never give up. Some of the best-loved comedies in the history of television – “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “All in the Family,” “Cheers” – barely survived low-rated first seasons.
Then again, some times giving up is the best strategy. No matter how often critics told viewers to watch “Arrested Development” it just came off sounding like “eat your vegetables.” Sometimes shows have to get cancelled before people miss them. “Arrested Development” is coming back in 2013, as a Netflix offering, five years after it left the air. “Family Guy” was cancelled after two seasons, sold like crazy on DVD and returned for an additional eight-plus seasons.
Even if “Michael” goes 12 episodes and out, it will tie the number of episodes for what many consider the funniest TV comedy ever made – “Fawlty Towers.” Sometimes, less is more.
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Bill Brioux is a freelance TV columnist based in Brampton, Ont.
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