Ahead of next week’s Upfronts presentations where all will be revealed with regard to next season’s television programming, here’s a little list of what’s already been canceled, renewed, and “on the bubble” as we and trusty TV By the Numbers see it. We’re not going to worry with all those silly Summer shows that may not make it onto the real Fall season roster. So all you fans of Mistresses, you’ll just have to wait for whatever it is the networks do with summer shows. Which seems to be quietly put them out to pasture right before everyone wonders where they store Alyssa Milano for the rest of the year.
ABC
Interestingly ABC hasn’t officially renewed anything…yet. What the hell are they waiting for? It’s not like anyone believes Modern Family will be canceled (Ever…). We swear we’ll be in Rockports, thumping melons at the grocery store and eating pudding and Ed O’Neil will still be on television. Believe us, they’ve got a ton of shows coming back next season. One of the big surprises is Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Oomph, this show started out a bit rocky. And the complaints were endless. But finally it found its groove, or people just stopped complaining about it not having a big name superhero and enjoyed it for the Misfits of Science meets X-Men on a Plane thrill ride (are they always on a plane and is someone always going “rogue?”) that it is. The thing about ABC is that they get their viewers. This is the network that knows how to do light fare. When you look at their roster one word really comes to mind…fun. ABC shows are at their core fun. And that has proven successful for the network.
Already Canceled: Lucky 7, Mind Games, Killer Women, The Assets, Back In The Game, Once Upon A Time In Wonderland
Prepare For The End: Betrayal, The Neighbors, Trophy Wife, Super Fun Night (People thought Rebel Wilson and a bunch of girls would be golden…eh, not so much.) Mixology
Has Shot At Renewal: EVERYTHING MOSTLY! Last Man Standing, Revenge, Castle, The Middle, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Once Upon A Time, Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, Modern Family, Resurrection, Suburgatory, The Goldbergs, Nashville
Shocker: Last Man Standing — We suppose Tim Allen really will be The Last Man Standing (cue that monkey noise of victory he makes.)
CBS
CBS, or we’ll call it, The Network that Renews Early. Of the big three CBS has the fewest cancellations at this point in the game. That number would be one, and that’s a little show that most of us can’t even remember called We Are Men. What was this even about? Men, ostensibly. Uh, okay. Men doing men things we imagine. How could this not be successful? Because men just sitting around menning isn’t very interesting? Perhaps. But, really, CBS is more than aware that their viewers want a steady diet of procedurals and classic situation comedy laughers, and more and more of the same, please. They don’t vary from this formula…ever. This is what works for them and by golly they’re sticking to it.
Already Canceled: We Are Men
Prepare For The End: Hostages, Intelligence, The Mentalist, The Crazy Ones, Friends With Better Lives
Shocker: Friends With Better Lives — Aww, James Van Der Beek! Not again!
Renewed: Blue Bloods, The Good Wife, Hawaii Five-0, Elementary, CSI, Person Of Interest, Mom, Mike & Molly, Two and a Half Men, NCIS: Los Angeles, Criminal Minds, 2 Broke Girls, NCIS, The Millers, The Big Bang Theory
NBC
So NBC threw a whole of programming at the wall this season to see what would stick and the result is: Not Much. And that’s not really a surprise. NBC, who recently held a contest to see if they could find a new sitcom idea from relative commoners, has been in this place before. There have been lots and lots of bad ideas from the Peacock Network over the last few years. This season included. If this season’s tanks indicate anything, perhaps it’s that viewers are tired of NBC’s attempts at creating the non-traditional, quirky family, and well, no one cares about Blair Underwood, a non-disabled actor, playing a disabled police detective in NBC’s umpteenth cop procedural. NBC, apparently, also fails miserably at Sci-Fi…always. Mystical little girls, and post apocalyptic worlds abound, but in the hands of NBC they end up looking and feeling like ten other shows the network’s tried before.
If we had to hazard a guess about the bubble shows; About a Boy stays because it’s the only non-traditional family sitcom that is working; Hannibal along with Grimm and The Blacklist round out the creep factor; Community fans make NBC execs feel good about having played chicken with a popular show; Parenthood is the best “weepy” the network has; and oh, haha, Law & Order: SVU isn’t going anywhere. Growing Up Fisher is probably the odd man out. It’s the one with the biggest “Meh” chorus right now.
Already Canceled: Welcome To The Family, The Michael J. Fox Show, Ironside, Sean Saves The World
Shocker: The Michael J. Fox Show — Michael J. Fox in a hartwarming family comedy that embraces his disability seemed like a good idea at the time.
Prepare For The End: Dracula, Believe, Crisis, Revolution
Has Shot At Renewal: About A Boy, Hannibal, Community, Parenthood, Growing Up Fisher, Law & Order: SVU
Shocker: Law & Order: SVU — Have we finally entered an era where renewing this old procedural isn’t a given?
Renewed: Parks & Recreation, Grimm, Chicago PD, Chicago Fire, The Blacklist
Shocker: Chicago PD, Chicago Fire — No, not really. We guess it’s not really surprising that Beefcake PD and Beefcake Fire got renewed early.
CW
The CW or the Young Adult network has a whole litany of angst-driven shows about fish-out-of-water young people dealing with social inadequacies while being aliens and/or vampires and/or medieval monarchs. We can’t remember the last time this network had shows not falling into one of these categories. If a popular YA novel hasn’t been made into a feature film where everyone either has to kill one another in a series of gladiator games or they wake up and find out that they’re a half-demon half-witch who must save the world, then that book is making its way to the CW. And bully for them for striking while the teen trend was hot years ago and making the genre its bread and butter. The beauty of this strategy is that the execs give the shows lots and lots of chances for viewers to latch on. Thusly, there have been no cancellations so far…but that doesn’t mean that the kids out there like everything.
Cancelled: The Carrie Diaries, Star-Crossed, The Tomorrow People
Renewed: Reign, The Originals, Arrow, Vampire Diaries, Supernatural. As of 5/8/14 Beauty And The Beast, Hart Of Dixie, and The 100 are all renewed
FOX
FOX, which we can say with a straight face, is the house The Simpsons built. No other network has ever had animated series that get renewed other than Fox. It’s so very strange, right? That’s not to say that they don’t do scripted shows well, or can’t churn out a decent laugher or three. They certainly can, and Fox has proved it with shows like New Girl, The Mindy Project, and now Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but also with tense dramas like The Following and newcomer Sleepy Hollow, whose success could be considered a huge shock. It’s a supernatural show about Ichabod Crane (with Abbie!) and a bunch of demons terrorizing the town of Sleepy Hollow. Not exactly NCIS, eh? And then there are shows like Dads which was apparently conceived in a frat house in 1992. Needless to say, Fox is a network that can get things very, very right, but then they can also start flinging monkey dung at the walls.
Already Canceled: Raising Hope, Enlisted, Almost Human
As of 5/7/14:Rake, Dads, Surviving Jack
Has Shot At Renewal: Family Guy
Renewed: Glee, The Mindy Project, Bob’s Burgers, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, New Girl, Bones, The Following, Sleepy Hollow, The Simpsons
Shocker: Glee, The Mindy Project — What is there left to sing about? Has a Journey song survived that hasn’t been touched by the hands of Ryan Murphy? The Mindy and Castellano arc gets the biggest eyeroll you can imagine.
