So far we’ve seen two cancellations this season. And rumors say there may be a third.
It’s being reported that NBC is considering pulling the plug on the freshman series “Undercovers.”
Produced by J.J. Abrams, the series following two spies who are also married hasn’t quite been the hit NBC expected. Ratings have been solid but unspectacular in its Wednesday time slot.
However, executive producer Josh Reims says that reports of the series demise are greatly exaggerated.
“As far as I know at this point, we’ve only had very positive support from both Warner Bros. and NBC,” he tells Zap2It. “NBC knows that it’s hard to open a night. We have no lead in. You just have to sort of get the word out and hope that word of mouth builds an audience, [but] it takes some time.”
Reims went on to say that a dip in ratings from the first episode to the second was to be expected.
“[A drop] obviously is expected after the premiere, [and NBC] has been very supportive and positive about it. The shows are really good that’s coming up and hopefully people will catch on and start watching,” he said.
NBC was the winner in a bidding war among networks for the show, primarily because the series had Abrams’ involvement. The network is also committed to a pilot for a new show by Abrams with former “Lost” stars Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson.
Which two shows have already been axed?
Lone Star and My Generation.
I don’t recall seeing any promos for My Generation, but when I saw the promos for Lone Star, I remember thinking “Wow, feels like a watered down version of Profit. Not interested.”
“Only one person would dare give me the raspberry… LONESTAR!”
Sorry. Every time I saw a preview for that show this was all I could think about.
I’m trying to avoid picking up new shows so I never thought about watching this one. But if the ratings are solid, they should try and keep it. The paranoid part of me wonders if the lower rates are because the main characters are black. Sorry, but someone has to say it.
That being said, I hope the networks realize that it takes time to develop a good audience. Law & Order had bad ratings the first few seasons yet it lasted 20. A smaller but more loyal audience is better than a flash in the pan one-season wonder.
I’m white, & it doesn’t bother me that the two leads in Undercovers are black. If people think the show is just a “black” show, they need to broaden their horizons a bit. The show is fun. The Event is boring. Undercovers should be a hit, not The Event.
Tammy Smith, their race doesn’t bother me but I’ve met people who are bothered. These are the same people who say Yard Crashers (on DYI) should be yanked off the air because of the host. And these were sci-fi fans, people who I would think would be beyond such things.
I caught the tail end of 2 episodes before L&O SVU and both times it ended with the main characters in bed about do what married people do. I don’t know if that’s how it is for every episode. I hope not just for the sake of having variety and a bit of realism so that not every mission ends with them saying how much they love each other. It’s great that they do, but if I saw an ending where one of them went to bed while the other stayed up to think about what happened and have an adult beverage that would be better. That would be drama.
I don’t remember much about Profit, so I can’t say if Lone Star was a watered down version or not. I watched the pilot episode and enjoyed it. I DVRed the second but when Fox gave it the axe, I wasn’t sure if I should watch it and then be frustrated that I’d never get more (assuming I liked the story, of course) or just leave the happy memories I had of the pilot in place.
I still have the second episode on the DVR to watch at some point….
Maybe it’s time for the programming folks to take a better look at their promos.
I saw the promos for No Ordinary Family, and knew I’d start watching. I saw the promos for Undercovers and while it looked mildly interesting, there was nothing in the promo that was outstanding enough to make me want to “must see” (compared to the first promos for Burn Notice and Covert Affairs, although to be fair, I didn’t keep watching Covert Affairs, but that was for time reasons rather than show quality). The promos for The Event made me want to watch, and the promos for Chase made me want to watch (but I dropped Chase after the first ep). The promos for Lone Star didn’t stand out, and the premise held no interest for me, so I knew I wasn’t going to watch.
And check out Profit if you get a chance. Profit was dark, Action! was dark humor, and both were shows with potential cut short by Fox back in the day.
“The Event is boring.”
“The Event” is definitely NOT boring. Right now, it’s my third favorite series of the season (right behind “Smallville” and “Fringe”). “Undercovers” is my FIFTEENTH favorite (out of 21 shows). There’s quite a gap there.
I’m with Kyle. It’s good so far and I want to see where it goes. All three shows so far have ended with WTF moments. I will keep watching.
Unfortunately that means it will probably get canceled. The problem with shows like these is that they require you to look up from your texting or facebook or farmville and pay attention. If you don’t pay attention then you don’t get it.
Since this country isn’t capable of that the show will likely fail.
No offense Kyle but ranking your favorite shows up to 21 is a little disturbing.
I gave it 100% of my attention and I’m still not sure I “get it”. Its not even a matter of it being too intelligent., I think the the producers are confusing intelligent and clever with baffling and obscure.
As much as I want to give it a chance its making it very difficult and the only reason I’m watching it is because its straight after Mythbusters. The minute it gets shifted to a latter slot may well be its death knell as far as I’m concerned.
What are you guys watching? The Event is way boring. It’s a terrible show, search the internet a little and you’ll find out that everyone else thinks so too.
As a Black guy (who’s ga ga over GuGu) it’s somewhat refreshing to see some color on the TV screen… in the sense that it’s a show where minorities are the leads and not just the typical supporting cast (if at all). However, Undercovers is WOODEN. Seriously, I was already seeing it’s demise just at the mention that Boris Kojo was cast as a lead… he’s terribly monotone and wooden in EVERY movie I’ve seen him in. Add to the fact that there’s no sense of danger… or romance in the show and this just continued to fall farther down my DVR watch list. Now, I supprt JJ and I support the effort of the show… so I’ll begrudgingly watch it until it’s end… but… I REALLY wanted more from this show and it just hasn’t produced. The supporting cast is annoying as well.
LOVE The Event though… not great, but VERY interesting.
What KG said. I still have the first two eps of Undercovers on my DVR, but I have not yet had any motivation to finish watching the first ep. I got to the second commercial break, and went into full on “bored now” mode. I may delete them outright this weekend.
Same thing with Chase, but I watched that first ep through to the end because I wanted to see if they caught the bad guy. But by the end, I just didn’t engage with any of the main characters save Cole Hauser, and so didn’t see any reason to keep watching.
I’m a woman of color, and I gotta tell you, I don’t care what color the people are who are playing the roles. If the roles aren’t written well or played well, and the stories they’re telling us are pedestrian, plodding, predictable and otherwise uninteresting and unintriguing, what’s my motivation to keep watching while you figure it out? You should have had that figured out before you got the greenlight and before that first episode hit the airwaves.
If it took the execs 6 episodes to say “Ooooh, I like this”, then dammit, give us all 6 episodes all at once. Or show them out of order to pull the audiences in, like they think it’s okay to do to science fiction shows.
Just tell a damned good story. The rest of the details will sort themselves out and work out just fine.
Albert: I don’t depend on the internet to decide whether a show is good or not. I watch the show. I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t really give a frack what the internet thinks.
The internet thinks Lolcats is funny. I do not.
Problem is there’s too many formulaic TV shows on without much new. Little bits of new. The Event is too much like Lost and maybe Heroes. Sure they’re people from somewhere else, but still. It’s too obvious a mystery that we won’t know until the end. Lost took me through the ringer with that and I’m not interested in giong through that again. I like Covert Affairs cause of Piper and it’s smart. Undercovers, the same but shallower. Not enough background on the leads to care enough about them. I’m watching No Ordinary Family because it’s Heroes but looks to be more grounded and about family.
Axe “undercovers” already.
I really enjoy Undercovers and the two leads are perfect casting choices. Also having Gerald McRaney as your main support guy was another wise choice, and I’m even beginning to soften-up a bit to the idea of his playing the crotchity old spy guy (he and I are of the same age).