so, kidnapped, a nice, intelligent show, in the thriller genre sure but still quite intelligent, not a suspension-of-disbelief kinda show like prison break or 24, and not overly stylized like vanished--and, yes, this is all subjective, but that the show is good is not my point, so bear with me--a well put together show with a good cast and an actual direction, an end in mind. so, it was notable when nbc, instead of cancelling the show outright, told the producers (who apparently, had mentioned this possibility preemptively back when the show got picked up, so kudos to them) to finish their story in 13 episodes, cause that was all they were getting. and, sure they banished the show to saturday night, a dead night for television in recent years, but they were going to keep it on the air, let it have its 13 episodes (and, they still may, but that is not my point here either), let it have a complete story (the more to sell dvds later, of course) and be done, wrapped up in a nice, neat little package. nevermind that many many shows would do well limited to less episodes, a la pay cable series or numerous british shows (the former often doing 13 episodes per season, the latter sometimes only doing 6). and, after a brief gap, sure enough kidnapped showed up on saturdays and continued its run...
for a whole two episodes
and now, for november sweeps, it will be replaced by reruns of law & order criminal intent. sure, it might still be back after sweeps, sure the network may stick with... well, their second agreement. but, what the fuck? you want to have shows be watched, but, even when you make a point (at least for those paying attention) of mentioning big schedule moves, changes to the episode order numbers, and the like, you still fuck with the schedule all over again in favor of sweeps... on a fucking saturday? that night will be dead either way. anyone remember when a show was given a chance to grow an audience for itself? no? me neither
the cynic in me says they only did the second agreement to draw some attention for the fans paying attention, to keep the title in our minds a little longer to insure dvd sales, but... well, i guess there is no but. the cynic wins this one. keep us thinking about it, keep us wanting it, then take it away again, so we'll be desperate to buy it to sit on our shelves along with threshold, firefly, ez streets, and wonderfalls*
the cynic in me would also like to complain about a couple other things today:
- political junk mail, ie email from political candidates, which my hotmail junk filters have kept away until recently. see, it's only been in the last week or two that this particular brand of junkmail has found its way past the filters to reach my inbox. now, i could assume hotmail is in on it, but i know how easy it is to get around bulk email filters. and, it seems so fucking convenient, just when its too late to complain--hell, the ubsubscribe function (cause, you know every one of these emails claims i subscribed to them, even though they are apparently one time emails and not one of many, worthy of a "subscription") will probably barely go into effect in time for next week's elections (assuming of course, there were more to come in my "subscription")--and just when it's close enough to the election to get these people's names in our heads. of course, for me at least, it makes me want to lash out at these fucking politicians rather than vote for them, but who's got the time?
- and, it's october in southern california, or was until yesterday anyway. that means fires. that there is a big fire raging is not national news, that firefighters died is not fucking national news, and fires do not deserve fucking names, damn it. scientists name hurricanes because they track them and study them and all that nice, scientific shit. we don't track these fires. we don't study them. i'm fairly sure we've got the whole fire thing figured out. so, we don't need to name them. and, i don't care how much this country worshipped firefighters 5 years ago, they do a dangerous job, they sometimes die, we don't have to pretend each one is important enough to get on fucking cnn
* to mention a few, and mix networks and styles and be, once again, completely subjective about quality