Weekly Poll: Which Axed Show From 2010 Would You Bring Back?
This week we are asking you to vote for which axed/cancelled/ended show from 2010 would you bring back given the chance. While the year isn’t quite over yet and there’s still a good chance that other shows will fall victim to the axe we’ve come up with a list of shows axed/cancelled/ended that perhaps deserve a second chance – so which of our selection would you bring back?
This week we are asking you to vote for which axed/cancelled/ended show from 2010 would you bring back given the chance. While the year isn’t quite over yet and there’s still a good chance that other shows will fall victim to the axe we’ve come up with a list of shows axed/cancelled/ended that perhaps deserve a second chance – so which of our selection would you bring back?
Ghost Whisperer
The CBS supernatural series starring Jennifer Love Hewitt was a somewhat surprising victim of the axe earlier this year. Ghost Whisperer was paired up with fellow supernatural series Medium (starring Patricia Arquette) on Friday evenings for the past season. CBS picked up Medium – as it was the producer of it – when NBC decided to cancel it. The two shows seemed like an obvious pairing and few suspected that just a season later one would become a victim of the axe.
However, after a season of being paired up together CBS decided to cull Ghost Whisperer – even though it rated slightly higher than Medium. The reason? Well quite possibly because ABC Studios co-produce Ghost Whisperer while CBS Studios is the sole producer of Ghost Whisperer. Fans of GW were outraged and there was some hope that ABC would pick up the dumped series but in the end it did not. Now though Medium has been cancelled with its episode order reduced to 13 episodes by CBS following low ratings.
The Bill: ITV1
It could be argued that the writing was on the wall for The Bill last year when its format radically changed. When the drama first started out in the 1980s it was a drama that aired in seasons in a 9pm slot but by the mid 1990s it was a twice weekly, half-hour, all year-round drama in a pre watershed slot. It was the half-hour format of The Bill which the drama is best remembered for and flourished under for many years – just think of how many memorable character appeared during those half-hour years!
The Bill reverted to hour-long episodes in the late 1990s but in 2009 ITV in their “wisdom” decided The Bill should revert back to being a post-watershed, gritty, hard-edged drama with just one episode per week. The iconic theme tune was ditched in favour of something awful, cast members were axed and the ratings dropped to below 3 million viewers. ITV’s revamp of The Bill was an utter failure – although the series did continue to produce strong episodes – and earlier this year the broadcaster unsurprisingly axed it. A cynic might argue that was the purpose of the revamp in the first place……
Caprica: Syfy/Sky One
The prequel series to Battlestar Galactica is set some fifty years before the events of its parent show and charts the rise of the Cylons in the Colonies through the eyes of two families; the Adama’s (Tauron immigrants) and the Graystones. In the pilot episode Zoe Graystone (Alessandra Torresani) and Tamara Adama (Genevieve Buechner) are killed in a terrorist attack by the ‘Soldiers of the One’; with Zoe later being labelled a terrorist. The series explores the social divide in Caprican society, the casual racism of most Capricans towards Taurons and also the rise of monotheism within the colonies led by Sister Clarice (Polly Walker). The two main protagonists of Caprica are Daniel Graystone (Eric Stoltz) and Joseph Adama (Esai Morales).
However, Caprica has failed to take off with audiences in the same way that Battlestar Galactica did. The slow plot development of the first few episodes – setting up events for latter episodes and developing the shows mythology – probably didn’t help Caprica in terms of ratings. While the second half of its first season has seen the action ramped up it seems too little too late in regards to viewers as the series has been cancelled by Syfy with five episodes remaining to be aired. A new spin-off Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome, set during the Cylon War, has been commissioned. Perhaps the lack of spaceships, space battles and showpieces associated with Battlestar Galactica is part of the reason Caprica failed?
Married Single Other starring Dean Lennox Kelly, Lucy Davis and Ralf Little was hailed a new Cold Feet by critics and ITV had high hopes for it. The comedy drama opened strongly with over 6 million viewers but across the series ratings fell and ITV decided not to commission a new series. American medical drama Scrubs originally aired on NBC for seven seasons and starred Zach Braff, Sarah Chalke, Donald Faison and Ken Jenkins. ABC picked up the medical comedy for its 8th season which was widely believed to be its last but the broadcaster renewed it for a ninth season – but the majority of the main cast only appeared in handful of episodes. With the majority of the main cast only appearing in several episodes ratings were not high and ABC ultimately axed the series with the final episode airing in March.
NBC’s cult drama Heroes (starring Kristen Bell, Zachary Quinto, Adrian Pasdar, Hayden Panettiere and Masi Oka) to the surprise of everyone was given a fourth season even though ratings had dropped across its third year. Creator Tim Kring promised fans that there criticisms had been listened too and would be addressed throughout the fourth season and Bryan Fuller returned, at the end of the third season, after the cancellation of his ABC series Pushing Daisies. However, Fuller only remained with Heroes for several months before departing to work on other projects. Ratings for the fourth series of Heroes continued to drop and despite the optimism of the cast the show was cancelled. ABC’s Flashforward was widely tipped to the new ‘Lost’ with its story-arc and mysteries but despite a strong launch it failed to maintain high ratings and cancellation rumours plagued it as ratings dropped.
1960s based police-drama Heartbeat was cancelled by ITV last year – though the broadcaster didn’t admit so until this year. After an 17 years of 1960s based storylines – who knew the decade lasted so long – and a soundtrack seemingly stuck on repeat Heartbeat finished in September on ITV1. Long serving cast members at the time of Heartbeat’s finale included Tricia Penrose, Derek Fowlds, William Simons and Peter Benson. Also axed last year was the CBS soap As The World Turns after over 50 years on-air. In September the veteran soap bowed out after nearly 14,000 episodes!
You can also vote for the comedy drama Ugly Betty and 24.
Voting is open until Saturday 15th January 2011. It couldn’t be simpler to vote. The poll is located on the right-hand side of our website. Simply select the show of your choice and hit vote; you will then be redirected to the results page so you can see how the poll is progressing. If you select the ‘Other’ option then please post below what your ‘other’ choice as all comments posted will be counted in the final results.
