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Brilliantly Canceled
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Getting Trapped in Nostalgia in 'That 80s Show'

by | May 13th, 2013

As the spiritual spin-off of That 70s Show, Mark Brazil, Terry Turner, and Linda Wallem’s nostalgia goldmine, That 80s Show wants nothing more than to recreate the success of its predecessor. Set in a new decade with a fresh batch of cultural stereotypes, 80s Show finds Brazil, Turner, and Wallem once again digging up overt and digestible references that can ring with older and younger audiences. And at a cursory glance, it’s hard to see their failings. Like, say, if you watch the show without dialogue and simply listen to the pretty excellent soundtrack, you’d probably be inclined to agree and say, “Yeah, that looks enough like That 70s Show to warrant 22 of the precious minutes I have on this planet.”

But you’d be wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. READ MORE

Brilliantly Canceled
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NBC's 'Bates Motel' (Or, 'Extreme Makeover: Hitchcock Edition')

by | April 29th, 2013

Sometimes TV shows drag their unfunny, uninteresting, yet highly rated feet across our living rooms for years. “Who let this happen?” we cry in vain. Other times, the powers that be get things right. That’s where “Brilliantly Canceled” comes in, looking at the shows that didn’t make it past their first season and saved us all a ton of grief.

25 years before A&E’s Bates Motel, there was NBC’s Bates Motel. However, instead of following the origins of Norman Bates, this made-for-TV movie tracks the grand re-opening of the infamous hostel. Filled to the brim with such Psycho staples as camp, interior design, and commentary on the death of smalltown America, the show never stood a chance.

Bates Motel appropriately suffers from a serious identity crisis, with director Richard Rothstein unsure if he wanted to parody or honor the series. More slapstick than slasher, the pilot is a jumble of misfired jokes, scares, and twists. Shooting most of the comedy in closeup and most of the drama in wide shots, Rothstein really lets us soak up how bizarre this thing really is. READ MORE

Brilliantly Canceled
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The Gross Mess That Was the 'Garbage Pail Kids' Cartoon

by | April 15th, 2013

Sometimes TV shows drag their unfunny, uninteresting, yet highly rated feet across our living rooms for years. “Who let this happen?” we cry in vain. Other times, the powers that be get things right. That’s where “Brilliantly Canceled” comes in, looking at the shows that didn’t make it past their first season and saved us all a ton of grief.

It’s not every day that Brilliantly Canceled gets a number of reasonable theories as to why a show failed. Usually, we’re left to complaining about unfulfilled expectations and audience confusion. In the case of the Garbage Pail Kids cartoon series, which CBS canceled several days before its initial 10-episode run was to air, however, the causes of cancellation are pretty clear (a dwindling fad, parent protests, uninterested/scared advertisers). But for a show like Garbage Pail Kids, it’s probably better to ask, “What were they expecting?” anyway.

In CBS’s defense, they took director Bob Hathcock at his word. Promising an “unorthodox, wild, and whacky” version of the controversial trading card series, Hathcock took the reigns of a project that seemed destined to fail. Earlier that year, a Garbage Pail Kids movie, which played like a nightmarish version of The Muppets Take Manhattan, was a box office disaster, with critics calling it, “a stunningly inept and totally reprehensible film.” It’s no surprise that reviews like this and public disinterest would give CBS cold feet. READ MORE

Brilliantly Canceled
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Even Clarissa Couldn't Explain 'Clarissa Now'

by | April 1st, 2013

Sometimes TV shows drag their unfunny, uninteresting, yet highly rated feet across our living rooms for years. “Who let this happen?” we cry in vain. Other times, the powers that be get things right. That’s where “Brilliantly Canceled” comes in, looking at the shows that didn’t make it past their first season and saved us all a ton of grief.

Growing up is hard for anyone. But for a children's show, growing up means death. A series may be for ages 2-5 or 7-12, but what happens when the core viewers move out of that range? Should the show age with its audience? Should it look for a younger one? What about the show’s stars? Can they still relate to their followers? Instruct them? Guide them?

The early-90s were an amazing time for children’s television behemoth Nickelodeon. After inking a massive marketing deal, the station opened up shop in Orlando, Florida to produce its own game shows and animated series, as well a new lineup of pre-teen programming for Snick, their Saturday night teen-centric block. The station was growing with the audience and managed to keep them for a few more years. But when that audience comes to depend on TV to teach, this growing relationship gets more complicated. Just ask Clarissa Darling. READ MORE

Brilliantly Canceled
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'The Farm': Why 'The Office's Backdoor Pilot Didn't Work

by | March 18th, 2013

Sometimes TV shows drag their unfunny feet across our living rooms for years. “Who let this happen?” we cry in vain. Other times, the powers that be get things right. That’s where “Brilliantly Canceled” comes in and looks at the shows that didn’t make it past their first episode and saved us all a ton of grief.

After nine seasons of The Office, a spinoff seemed inevitable. The show’s overwhelming success and incredibly popular characters were too good to lose, especially for the flailing peacock. Of the show’s original cast, few characters rose higher than Rainn Wilson’s Dwight Schrute. As Michael Scott’s loyal assistant to the regional manager, Dwight was violent, sociopathic, archaic, and strangely likable.

Like Dwight, Wilson was loyal to The Office. As Steve Carell launched into the superstardom and Ed Helms joined comedy’s most successful wolf pack, besides a few lower profile roles, Rainn stayed at his desk and did his work. So after nearly a decade of hard work, it only seemed fair to give The Office’s second most popular character his own show, right?

For the better part of a year, we’d hear updates on The Farm, a spinoff series in which Dwight, his cousin Mose, and the rest of the Schrutes ran a bed and breakfast on their infamous beet farm. But the show was not meant to be; NBC passed on the pilot, which was later recut and inserted into the final season. READ MORE

Course Corrections
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Five Great Shows That Almost Jumped the Shark

by | March 14th, 2013

Between the firing of Dan Harmon on Community and the endless retooling (and eventual cancelation) of Up All Night, NBC has filled the current TV season with dread and frustration. But it wouldn’t be the first time a show has been in trouble. With that in mind, here are five great shows that nearly jumped the shark but managed to rebound and reclaim their former glory. READ MORE

Brilliantly Canceled
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Watching 'Kelly's Kids', the Backdoor 'Brady Bunch' Pilot

by | March 4th, 2013

Sometimes TV shows drag their unfunny, uninteresting, yet highly rated feet across our living rooms for years. “Who let this happen?” we cry in vain. Other times, the powers that be get things right. That’s where “Brilliantly Canceled” comes in, looking at the shows that didn’t make it past their first season and saved us all a ton of grief.

The early 70s belonged to the Bradys. Co-opting flower power parenting and Leave It to Beaver wholesomeness, Brady Bunch-creator and TV-demigod Sherwood Schwartz turned the story of a lovely lady and some guy named Mike into a ratings dynamo and six kids into the archetypal American youngsters. And, of course, freedom rang for Brady Bunch lunch boxes, breakfast cereals, and knockoffs. And it was good.

Part of the Brady's appeal was that, from the time it premiered, it was hard to imagine something more familiar than The Brady Bunch — it’s basically the TV equivalent of apple pie, baseball, and the Fourth of July. But the kids’ rosy cheeks and doe eyes wouldn’t last forever; they grew older and less adorable by the minute. So during the show's initial run, producers introduced the world to Cousin Oliver, a younger, cuter, and more mischievous Brady child. Cousin Oliver was Schwartz's most famous attempt at freshening up the show, but throughout and after the show's life, the Brady kids found themselves starring in cartoons, variety shows, and vacations in Hawaii. READ MORE

Brilliantly Canceled
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Time Travel, Bazookas, and Robot Dinosaurs: A Look Back at the Weird, Wild Misstep of 'Steel Justice'

by | February 19th, 2013

Steel Justice's infamous 1992 pilot is one of the most unbelievable wastes of money in television history. A gross miscalculation of popular trends, the pilot documents the bizarre things a network (or two crazed screenwriters) thinks the populous will swallow in the most embarrassing way possible. But how does one properly package the rise of Robosaurus in way that isn't overly dramatic, boring, or confusing?

A good title communicates a lot about anything made for public consumption. By putting a glass and an orange on the front, a carton of Minute Maid Orange Juice convinces shoppers there's something resembling OJ inside. In a more relevant example, a show like Two and a Half Men, a series as brash and obvious as its title, becomes the most popular show on TV. People love that which is direct and to the point. Why else would anyone watch that show? Jon Cryer? Come on. READ MORE

Brilliantly Canceled
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'The Adventures of Superpup' TV Pilot Saves World, Scares Children

by | February 4th, 2013

Sometimes TV shows drag their unfunny, uninteresting, yet highly rated feet across our living rooms for years. “Who let this happen?” we cry in vain. Other times, the powers that be get things right. That’s where “Brilliantly Canceled” comes in, looking at the shows that didn’t make it past their first season and saved us all a ton of grief.

Superhero stories are a breeding ground for crossover and marketing synergy. Whether it be the standard multi-title comic arc or a video game where the main character flies through floating rings, comic book superheroes, the gods of our time, cannot escape the super-sized shoehorning caused by those looking for a new customer, regardless of what the standards of good taste are that week. Flagrant merchandising reigns supreme for comic book and movie studios alike, but back when the means of production failed to grasp how many different Batman figurines could be produced simply by changing the paint job, far more humiliating experiments were afoot.

That was the thinking behind The Adventures of Superpup pilot, a slapstick take on George Reeves’ Superman TV show. Another Superman show seems commonplace in a world that reboots Spiderman every time someone’s nephew needs an internship, but 1958 was a different world. Superpup differentiates itself from Reeves by slapping a canine motif on the script and outfitting the cast in horrific dog costumes. This Island of Dr. Moreau of the DC Multiverse failed to grab a sponsor probably because of how terrifying it all is. READ MORE

Brilliantly Canceled
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'Poochinski' Proves That Not All Dogs Go To Heaven (Some Just Become Peter Boyle)

by | January 22nd, 2013

Sometimes TV shows drag their unfunny, uninteresting, yet highly rated feet across our living rooms for years. “Who let this happen?” we cry in vain. Other times, the powers that be get things right. That’s where “Brilliantly Canceled” comes in, looking at the shows that didn’t make it past their first season and saved us all a ton of grief.

On a list of failed shows where Peter Boyle plays a talking police dog, Poochinski owns the number one spot. And it’s not for lack of trying either. Poochinski earned the position by undershooting even the lowest aspirations of its premise with a cascade of exhausting jokes, arduous exposition, and animatronics straight from the nightmare dog park of the uncanny valley. Then it does us one better. Remove the whole “dog can talk and operate stereo equipment” vehicle, and Poochinski is still a confusing, toneless mess. The show’s bizarre place in network television history — coupled with its equally bizarre spot in four writers’ “good idea” book — makes Poochinski one of the worst pilots to ever go live on a farm upstate somewhere.

Poochinski must have looked like a sure-fire hit. A late-80s ad-wizard dreams of a crossover between popular police dog movies and Trading Places. But what might Tom Hanks starring as Hooch or Scruff McGruff and Fred Savage going all Vice Versa look like? The answer: A half-hour cop comedy, where a vulgar detective trades bodies with a bulldog. We are through the looking glass here, people. READ MORE

Not-So-Brilliantly Canceled
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The Short, Beautiful Life of 'Lookwell', One of the Funniest Pilots of All Time

by | January 7th, 2013

Normally, Brilliantly Canceled brings you the worst in TV, but with the spirit of giving quickly escaping the earth, only to lay dormant for the next 351 days, we decided to bring you something to get your 2013 off on the right foot.

With the New Year’s baby pushing the withered remains of 2012 into the annals of time, it’s important to reflect on how hopeless it’s always been for us, the TV-obsessed. The short-lived victories of returning favorites, like Arrested Development and seven seasons of the poorly-rated 30 Rock, keep droves of television viewers assuming that maybe, just maybe, there’s someone in TV land fighting the good fight. But while we’ve seen some good calls in the past, television is still a vast wasteland of unused potential, where good ideas take flight and careen into a cavern of unseen despair, only to have their remains excavated and put on display in that great cat sanctuary in the sky: the Internet.

Sitting somewhere atop a trash heap in the Internet’s collective garbage dump is a little pilot called Lookwell. Now, the show has a reputation for being one of the great-unsold pilots of our time, and I’m not here to convince you otherwise. Lookwell is among the funniest and most creative TV parodies of the past 25 years. From the opening shots of Adam West’s Ty Lookwell sitting in an audition for Happy Days: The Next Generation–wearing the obligatory leather jacket and pompadour helmet–to the craning shot of our hero shutting the book another case, it fires on all cylinders, working both as a great comedy and a faithful parody of its subject. Lookwell is a show unlike any other, acting like an extended SNL sketch that works extraordinarily well, thanks in no small part to the writing team of SNL alums Conan O’Brien and Robert Smigel, as well as a fantastic performance by TV’s most-eccentric Batman, Mr. Adam West. READ MORE

Year in Review
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Mean Jeans are the Best (and Funniest) Band of the Year

by | December 28th, 2012


What happened in the last year of my life. I can't tell. Laughing at myself all I want in the middle of the night. Oh well.

- Mean Jeans, "Tears in My Beers" 2011

Before going on to lament about how good some BBQ sauce would be right about now, Mean Jeans' lead singer and guitarist, Billy Jeans, makes a pretty apt statement for how his band views themselves. Even the most sensitive and self-deprecating forms of rock music don't leave much room for self-parody. The undying need for musicians to make themselves look cool and/or sincere outweighs any semblance of laughter towards themselves. Turning yourself into the butt of the joke is something that comedians have mastered, while rock musicians squeak by with the a sense of pride, complicated shoes, and saying “whatever.” Self-deprecation may be a tool for the weak in rock music, but Mean Jeans harness a style of comedy and punk that is both hilarious and heartfelt. And for the last five years, the band has turned their obsession with The Ramones and Keanu Reeves into some of the finest punk in America. READ MORE

Brilliantly Canceled
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Mixing Animation and Live Action with Disastrous Results in 'The Danger Team'

by | December 10th, 2012

Sometimes TV shows drag their unfunny, uninteresting, yet highly rated feet across our living rooms for years. “Who let this happen?” we ponder, as our foreheads turn red from frequent smacks. Other times, the powers that be get things right. That’s where “Brilliantly Canceled” comes in, looking at the shows that didn’t make it past their first season and saved us all a ton of grief.

The 20th Century is filled with conversations worthy of a commemorative dinner plate or two. In the world of entertainment alone, people telling each other something sucks can have a massive effect on our culture at large. For instance, Bob Dylan openly criticizing John Lennon for writing "fluffy” Beatles’ songs in the mid-60s or Woody Allen's editor Ralph Rosenblum pushing to axe the murder mystery subplot of Annie Hall. The finished product gains something from this other perspective, pushing the artist to try a little harder or trim a bit of the fat. These decisions invariably made the work and, by proxy, all of our lives much, much better.

Yet, in 1989, a decision was made by the American Broadcasting Company to forgo such a conversation, allowing a largely forgotten cultural mistake to slip into prime time. At some point in 1990, hot on the heels of the massive success of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, ABC ordered a pilot about an amateur detective and three magical, clay figurines that help her solve crimes. The show, which only saw the airing of that pilot before being whisked into obscurity, was The Danger Team, and despite the animators’ attempts to raise the show above the level of creativity of that title, it mostly finds itself sitting far below the expectations of what any self-respecting TV-watcher can tolerate, if such an expectation or self-respecting TV-watcher exists. READ MORE

Brilliantly Canceled
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Reliving the Disastrous 'Osbournes: Reloaded' Variety Show

by | November 26th, 2012

Sometimes TV shows drag their unfunny, uninteresting, yet highly rated feet across our living rooms for years. “Who let this happen?” we ponder, as our foreheads turn red from frequent smacks. Other times, the powers that be get things right. That’s where “Brilliantly Canceled” comes in, looking at the shows that didn’t make it past their first season and saved us all a ton of grief.

If nothing else, Brilliantly Canceled provides us all with a space to congratulate the network executives that earn their bonuses by recognizing when they have something of a turd on their hands. It takes a lot to commit to a show nobody watches for a few seasons, but it takes even more to invest thousands in a show no one will watch ever, like, for instance, moving forward on a variety show featuring one of America's favorite families, while ignoring the obvious fact that no one has enjoyed a variety show since Sonny & Cher. Let’s take a moment to reflect on the monster who green lit The Osbourne family variety show, The Osbournes: Reloaded, and the rocket scientist who quickly canceled it. READ MORE

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