The TV thread

Like the Monday after the end of the NFL regular season, the axe is falling on network TV shows today.
Cancelled: Mr. Mayor, Kenan, B Positive, End Game, Magnum PI
Renewed: American Auto, Grand Crew, Young Rock.
I really liked Mr. Mayor, it had some great writing and a lot of really funny one liners. Kenan was a passable sitcom, not great, not terrible. B Positive was good in season 1 and terrible with a new focus in season 2. I liked End Game. Magnum had run its course.
I thought American Auto got better as the season went on, Grand Crew got worse and the novelty has worn off on Rock.

 

Just a little disappointed in the cancellation of Mr. Mayor; an upcoming race with Danson vs. Hunter could have been interesting.

Glad American Auto is getting a little more time to grow. I thought B Positive was a shit show from Day 1, which disappointed me because I liked Middleditch in Silicon Valley.

Canceled and Renewed TV Shows for 2022: See the Full List

Elsewhere, I'm quite disappointed Good Sam got the axe. I liked it. New Amsterdam is getting a shortened final season; it deserved better than that.

How We Roll was inevitable, although I'd hoped it would pick up a bit. I mean, I know it was bad. I just think (and this might be the old bowler in me), that if they had treated the premise with just a little more seriousness and attention to detail, just a little less of the bad sitcom story lines and corny one-liners, this could have worked.

The jury remains out on The Resident (damn, I watch more medical shows than I thought). I will be major pissed if it gets bumped.

 

Mr. Mayor could have been great but the writing just wasn’t up to it and other than the slovenly guy, no one broke out even a little from the cast. Kenan was awful this year.

The characters on American Auto should be smarter — not just a bunch of bumbling idiots and the one guy they took from the shop floor.

 

I was surprised Kenan even got a second season - My wife and I have a fairly low bar when it comes to sticking with a 22-minute network sitcom, and it didn't even clear that.

Mr. Mayor was enjoyable, but Danson and Holly Hunter probably aren't signing on to network TV for cheap. I'm assuming cost might have been an issue with it being canceled, vs. Grand Crew and American Auto, which are (funny) casts but full of actors making essentially pay scale minimum. Bobby Moynihan was funny on it, but the rest of the cast didn't really make much of an impression.

The Blacklist has seemed like farcical trash for boomers the rare times I caught it, and End Game looked like a further drafting on the fumes of even that. I think Morena Baccarin is a fine actress, but you need a Large Ham to carry that kind of show. (However, if it was on CBS, they probably get four years out of it, like they did with Magnum P.I., somehow.)

Young Rock is fine, but for S3, they really need to shit-can as much of the "future day President Rock" stuff as they can. I hope Randall Park, who I've liked in other roles, gets paid handsomely for being insultingly clueless in the 2032 scenes. It all detracts from the other aspects of the show, which are usually enjoyable, especially the 80s and 90s wrestling components. The only one drawing a significant paycheck from this show is probably The Rock - for his small acting parts, for the life rights - so I could see that as a factor in its renewal too.

 

I think there's only been about one network show that has really grabbed me in the last few years (Ghosts). And I feel like it's pointless to start watching a new comedy every year, because the vast majority of them get axed. Hell, if today's standards had applied to the 1980s, Cheers would never have made it to a second season. So why start getting invested in a show that has a 70% chance of getting canceled?

 

I've tried "How We Roll" but it doesn't seem to make it. Why does Chi McBride always play the same character -- tough-talking wannabe bad-ass. I thought the show would have more bowling sequences. The guy is boring. His wife is cool. His Mom is an ass. That's another thing -- why are the mother or mothers-in-law always assholes?

Magnum is running out of time to bag Higgins, I guess.

I don't watch any of those other shows.

Last season, I liked "All Rise." But I suppose nobody else did.

 

Gilded Age grew on me, big Baranski fan and Nixon was good too. The wardrobe crew must have been fantastic. Not a big Carrie Coon fan but Streep's daughter is tremendous.

 

All this, plus the lead cannot really bowl. And yes, a great waste of Katie Lowes.

 

NBC's comedy development has been awful since Friends. Even worse than that if you only count shows not ripped off from foreign versions. (The Office). I don't think they have a comedy on their schedule more than a year old at this point right? The Good Place was great, though viewership wasn't.

 

NBC keeps chasing that viewership high, which kind of sucks, because for a while they were at least producing quality content that had growing fan bases thanks to streaming services (Good Place, Parks and Rec, even The Office). Now, most of their network TV offerings are transparently awful shit aimed at the lowest common denominator, with the best-case scenario being that it's kind of OK (Young Rock), and they bury interesting stuff on Peacock (Girls5Eva, Rutherford Falls).

Speaking of - the trailers for Killing It make it seem like a farcical comedy about snake-hunting in Florida, starring Craig Robinson (The Office, Hot Tub Time Machine, Eastbound and Down) and Claudia O'Doherty (Love, Doughboys podcast). Having watched two episodes, this show is DARK as fuck, and reminds me way more of Wilford on FX. It's good, but the first two episodes have tons of swearing and also full frontal nudity. I wasn't prepared for Peacock to just like it fly like this.

 

this show has really dragged for me without Emily van camp. The 180 degree turn for Greenwood’s doctor, while years old at this point, is still very strange to get used to

 

The only two I watched of these were Mr. Mayor and American Auto. I liked Mayor, 30 Rock lite (expectedly as it's from Tina Fey). Auto I just have not found to be funny in the least bit. The guy from Superstore basically plays the same character but now white collar instead of blue. Maybe it'll get better. I'm not hopeful.

Also, Law & Order got renewed. As a fan of the mothership I was thrilled when this came back. This first season back has been ... ok at best. It continues, as it did in the latter years, only to do these big cases. Always thought L&O was best when it mixed things up and was grittier and not every case was headline making. I'm fine with the case other than Camryn Manheim, who I am not buying as the lieutenant (also had big shoes to fill x2). Also I believe the new ADA has won every case! C'mon!