Terminator Producer Talks Finale, What Would Have Been

SCI FI Wire has post snippets of an interview with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles exec producer James Middleton. The interview provides some interesting insights on the season finale that turned into the series finale when the show was recently axed.

Included are Middleton's thoughts on what the events of the finale meant for the character of John Connor and what would have happened if the show had been picked up for another season. To check out the interview snippets, click here. [SCI FI Wire]

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Earl Is Out of Luck

Twentieth Century Fox TV has announced that My Name is Earl is officially over. As reported on Pop Wenches a couple of days ago, Fox and TBS were in talks to bring Earl back from cancellation. After crunching the numbers to see if the Jason Lee-starring comedy could be produced on a basic cable budget, both Fox and TBS agreed that it wasn't feasible and ended negotiations.

"As none of us (creator Greg Garcia included) want the show to go out on anything but a high note, we regret that we must put to rest any speculation that Earl will continue," said the studio. [Variety]

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TV News: CBS Announces Fall Lineup

CBS has unveiled its fall schedule, which sees the network's new hit show The Mentalist moving to a primo Thursday spot following CSI. The network is also rearranging its Monday comedy lineup and, as was expected, is integrating Medium (which, as reported earlier, was dropped by NBC) into its schedule to complement Ghost Whisperer and Numbers.

Without a Trace and Worst Week were added to the roster of shows CBS is cutting. For more details on CBS' new fall lineup, click here. [Variety]

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TV News: ABC announces fall lineup, The Unit and My Name Is Earl canceled...

- ABC has presented its fall lineup, which will include returning shows like Grey's Anatomy and Dancing with the Stars. There will also be a Wednesday night, two-hour block of comedies (including Cougar Town). Scrubs and Better Off Ted are supposed to appear midseason. For more about the network's fall lineup, go here. [The Hollywood Reporter]

- Meanwhile, NBC has decided to cancel My Name Is Earl, but 20th Century executives are speaking to FOX and ABC about picking it up. The peacock network has also passed on ordering another season of Medium, but those rumors that show owner CBS could pick it up are still alive and kicking. Meanwhile, CBS has decided not to pick up The Unit. [Entertainment Weekly]

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TV News: Renewals and Cancellations as of May 18, 2009

We've been posting sporadic news about recent TV renewals and cancellations since last week, and I just posted my thoughts about the Sarah Connor cancellation here earlier today. But since we've all got day jobs here at Pop Wenches, it's tough to post each and every bit of TV scheduling news that's come out today.

So here's a little rundown of the fall line-ups so far:

- FOX announced its line-up of shows today, confirming the cancellation of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and stating that an abbreviated season of Dollhouse will (still) be airing on Friday nights. Fringe will move to Thursday night, while other established hits like House will stay in their current time slots (which means House will be on Monday nights). For a more comprehensive look at FOX's fall schedule, go here. [THR.com]
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- Meanwhile, it looks like ABC has decided to cancel Samantha Who? But executives have renewed Castle, meaning Nathan Fillion is finally on a series — not including Two Guys and a Girl — that hasn't been canceled only 10 or so episodes into its first season. Better Off Ted, which is actually pretty quirky/funny, has also been renewed. And as posted this weekend, Scrubs is coming back...[Entertainment Weekly Link 1; Link 2]

- CBS has picked up four new dramas, including an NCIS spin-off starring Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J, alongside a Jenna Elfman comedy. For more information on that go here. [Entertainment Weekly]

- As posted this weekend, NBC decided to renew Chuck and has renewed established shows like Heroes as well.

For a final tally of all the shows that are getting renewed and canceled, you can always visit this cheat sheet by Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello. It's a little messy, but gives you a good idea of his predictions and final outcomes for each major network's TV line-up.

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TV Cancellation News: The Sarah Connor Chronicles gets terminated

Bad news for Terminator fans: It looks like FOX's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has officially been canceled (at least according to Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello). It seems a bit premature, considering the fact that Terminator: Salvation will be out later this week. But even though I was a fan of the series, I will admit that it had a tendency to be fairly inconsistent -- maybe things would have been different if we'd had more episodes like the last season finale.
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Should FOX executives be crucified for this move? As much as it pains me to say it, I don't think so. I would have loved to see Terminator continue for another season, and some are speculating that it could in the form of DVD movies. However, let's not forget that the show did get another chance after a first season hampered by an industry-wide writers' strike. This was not another situation (a la Firefly) where the show's episodes were consistently aired out of order. Maybe it has been prematurely canceled -- this is something we may never know. But the fact remains: the show got two seasons, which is more than most well-liked, but poorly-rated shows tend to get.

Another thing I've noticed is that many fans are railing against Dollhouse as if that show really had anything to do with Terminator's cancellation. And I don't get it, even though I was a Terminator fan first and didn't even like Dollhouse much until its sixth episode. Though Dollhouse has a polarizing effect on viewers, and though many say its Whedon's weakest show, it does happen to have fans. And it's still a triumph for a poorly-rated science fiction show to be saved for at least one more season.

For all you know, Dollhouse will ultimately yield a poor profit for FOX (I'm sure they'll be watching those DVD sales this summer) and wind up getting canceled as well. So let's not turn this into a war. As a creative person, I'm extremely disappointed to hear about Terminator's cancellation, and I genuinely sympathize with the show's actors and production team. But even though we hate to admit it, TV is ultimately a business. And since this is not a colossally cruel cancellation of Firefly proportions, we can't be surprised (though we can still be disappointed) by this news.

[Entertainment Weekly]

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