Some days are good. Some are not so good. And some bring you news that just makes it clear it wasn’t worth chewing through the straps. This is one of those days.
According to our friends at The Hollywood Reporter, Pushing Daisies - that radiant example of what American Television is truly capable of if it would only raise its perception of the audience’s IQ above the ‘Reality’ gutter - is in imminent danger of being deleted.
The show is clearly not cheap to make, but the result is high-concept, high-quality, thoroughly enjoyable hokum that must be an absolute goldmine in overseas sales. And nobody gets eliminated. But the Writers Strike killed it for almost a year, so the ratings are down. And ABC would apparently prefer to kill a rare example of creative intelligence, rather than try a new air-time and continue supporting one of the few examples of quality TV since their other ratings breakout - the Housewives.
The complete ‘Endangered
Species’ list looks like this:
Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, The Ex-List, Life, Lipstick
Jungle, Hole in the Wall, Terminator - Sarah Connor, Valentine,
Easy Money, In Harm’s Way, Everybody Hates Chris, and The
Game
Some of those shows are listed for reasons that should present no cognitive challenge at all. But ‘Daisies’ should not be among them. And did you notice an absence? Knight Rider! It has to be one of the most risible, superficial and universally-scorned creations in the last five years - yet it’s nowhere to be seen on that list.
Canceling ‘Daisies’ is simply unjust, and could set a dangerous precedent if allowed to occur. If the networks see they can kill quality shows without serious complaint from the viewers, they’ll just never make them at all. Unless ‘Daisies’ and shows of that caliber are loved and preserved, TV will decay to an unending soup of Reality, Game Shows and Soaps. And be honest, could you really stand that?
Here’s ABC’s site for the show. And here’s the largest ‘Daisies’ fan site on the web. If you like the idea of having TV to choose from that engages the mind rather than blends it to mush, get over there now and get your voice heard.
[Reproduced from my blog at: www.harlequinade.biz/]
