Life after Television Death

Monday, 02 July 2007

By D. W. O’Dell No, the title of this piece doesn’t refer to the fate of Tony Soprano (my best guess: the final scene represents the Hell that Tony has created for himself, unable to enjoy dinner out with his family because of his fear of getting whacked). I am referring to the continued existence of TV shows on DVD, after cancellation. I certainly haven’t made a definitive survey of every cult TV show released on DVD after an all-too brief network television run. But it certainly is worth noting that even being axed by a network no longer consigns a series to oblivion. Cult-favorite shows, both long and short lived, can enjoy a continued existence on DVD where fans can continue to watch the series until they are sick of it. It used to be that only successful series that had at least 100 episodes in the can had any sort of life in syndication after cancellation. But things started changing with the expanded universe of cable which had a high demand for content, especially cut rate content. I first became aware of less-than-successful shows re-surfacing in re-runs in Minnesota in the late 1980s/early 1990s, where a low-budget local station billed itself as “TV Heaven.” I guess they couldn’t afford to buy “good” TV shows in syndication, so they bought ones that had maybe run for only a year or two. On “Western Night” they wouldn’t show Gunsmoke or Bonanza; they’d show Iron Horse or Maverick (a brilliant TV series that was far, far, FAR better than the lame Mel Gibson movie). On “Army Night” they’d have on Combat and Rat Patrol. They could pick up shows that had only been on for a couple of seasons, package them with shows from the same genre, then rotate frequently. I now can’t recall which one, but there was a cable channel (I think Comedy Central) that used to put on unsuccessful sitcoms on Saturday mornings. I’m talking about shows that died quickly, without a ripple, but featured future stars. Like the short-lived TV version of the movie Working Girl (which starred pre-fame Sandra Bullock and pre-Deep Space Nine Nana Visitor). Or Working Stiffs, a 1979 sitcom that happened to star two guys named Jim Belushi and Michael Keaton. The shows weren’t good, but it was interesting seeing how good (or not) stars could be before they were stars. Now of course cancelled shows can live forever on DVD. It used to be that networks would burn off un-aired episodes of cancelled series just to fill time; now they are just as likely to keep the shows in the can to increase demand for the DVD release. Seeing a cancelled show you loved on DVD can be a mixed blessing. I was incredibly eager to see the un-aired episodes of Miracles, Skeet Ulrich’s pre-Jericho show about faith and mysterious occurrences. However, when I got the DVDs, the aired episodes didn’t seem quite as good as I remembered, and the un-aired episodes were uniformly disappointing. My memories of the show would have remained much fonder had I not seen the un-aired episodes. On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting Kitchen Confidential, a show FOX pulled after four episodes in 2006. The un-aired episodes further developed the characters who were extremely three-dimensional to begin with, and the show maintained its raunchy, cheeky attitude. Why FOX pulled the plug after only four episodes is beyond me; it wasn’t a great show, but if you’ve got nine more episode in the can why not show them and see what happens...unless you are trying to boost DVD sales?   And I was pleased to learn from one commentary track that the building façade for the Nolita Restaurant now appears in How I Met Your Mother; I’ll have to watch for it next season. But as pleased as I was to watch the un-aired episodes of Kitchen Confidential, it was always with an undercurrent of sadness that the show was gone, that there was no more, that THAT WAS IT. The show’s creator mentioned in the commentary to the pilot that if the show had continued they were hoping to bring back Andrea Parker, who was in the pilot but whose character then left the show. She did have a nice chemistry with series lead Bradley Cooper, and writing her out of the series was one of its few mistakes; it would have been terrific if they could have been reunited. Despite the sadness, it is great for fans of a TV series to have access to all the un-aired episodes besides being able to replay their favorite ones time and again. Now if only they’d make some older one-season wonders available on DVD, like Cupid (series creator Rob Thomas [Veronica Mars] has said this ain’t gonna happen). In some ways, short-lived series are better suited for DVD than long running shows; owning a one-season show on DVD is like being in on a secret know one else knows about.

 

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