Low Budget Superhero

Living a happy life requires accepting some hard facts, and for me, one of the hardest ranks up there with "I'm never going to be a size six" and "My mother will never understand me." That is "Every TV show I like gets canceled."

Okay, not EVERY one. But a lot of them don't make it out of the first season. All I need to do is exclaim over virtues of script, character, setting and storyline et voila, my compelling new drama gets sliced off at its knees, while the only new sitcom that had me giggling like a schoolgirl gets "mid season replacement" slapped all over it. I'm a TV series killer.

Follow up:

As far as superpowers go, the ability to murder a TV show through the simple act of appreciating it, well, that's as low budget as it gets. I am Ratings Terminator from the planet Nielson, and I shall smite you with my deadly incantation spell: "I love this show."

Sometimes my series kiss of death is so very lethal that a show I've merely heard about is doomed to fail before it even airs. Take 2001's The Lone Gunmen. And you may, it was terrible. But boy, did I want that to work. I really did. As an avid X-Files fan, I was thrilled when I read about a new spin-off featuring the adorably nerdy trio of Langly, Byers and Frohicke. Conspiracy theories? Brilliant scientists? Secret control room from which this motley triumvirate publish an underground anti-establishment 'zine? What could go wrong? Well...it wasn't any one thing. Generally, the show just never did find its stride. I watched them all, though. I had a particular crush on Langly, the long-haired and bespectacled blond who put me in mind of the cartoon version of Dr. Egon Spengler. Though it had some bright spots and a lot of character, The Lone Gunmen barely cantered through thirteen episodes.

Then there's Action, the 1999 dark comedy starring Jay Mohr and the always-underrated Illeana Douglas. Action was brilliant. It was racy, smart, hilariously funny, peppered with politics and cultural references. The pilot shows Jay Mohr's character, a truly awful asshole of a Hollywood producer, pick up a hooker (Illeana Douglas) who turns out to have been a former child actress with an eye for spotting blockbuster scripts. The laughs range from subtle to downright bawdy, such as a well-played "full monty" scene akin to those in Austin Powers where various furniture and teapots hide, while also suggest, the naughty bits. Jay Mohr's portrayal of Peter Dragon was spot on, with the right amount of arrogance mixed in with endearing comedic timing. He was great, and oh, by the way, Buddy Hackett played his uncle. Lest you think it's all nostalgia, I recently re-watched a few episodes of Action online and yeah, it holds up. How it could have been panned, I'll never understand.

How about The Job, the dark comedy representing the first crack at prime time edginess for the writing team of Denis Leary and Peter Tolan (Rescue Me). The Job was about an asshole cop (Leary) trying to quit womanizing, smoking and boozing and failing at all three. He was addicted to NyQuil, abusive to everyone, and of the opinion that consequences are for other people. Everyone said The Job was brilliant, which is why it got a second season. And everyone said it was all too much for ABC, and that's why it didn't make it through that second season. Well then what about Rescue Me, which is on FX, home to other angsty, controversial shows such as Nip/Tuck and The Shield? Those shows seem to be doing fine. Why? 'Cuz I don't watch 'em. Rescue Me, however, is circling the drain. (In the interest of full disclosure, my brother, Mike Lombardi, had a small part in The Job and stars as Mike Siletti in Rescue Me, but that isn't why I think the shows both rock. Both The Job and Rescue Me are just excellent TV, with or without my family members in 'em.)

Creator Aaron Sorkin is not unlike Denis Leary in that his involvement means either pure gold or a sure fold. I adored Sorkin's West Wing, a flawless drama which enjoyed a nice long run and ended at precisely the right moment, neither swimming into shark-jumping waters nor feeling unfinished. So what was the problem with Sorkin's pre- and post-West Wing creations, respectively Sports Night and Studio Sixty on the Sunset Strip? They were AWESOME. And canceled. Sports Night was perfect in every way, and you need not give a hoot about sports to enjoy it. At least it got a couple of good years, topping out at 45 episodes and two years. 2006's oh-so-quickly killed Studio Sixty, with its cast partially stolen (and camera style and titles totally stolen) from West Wing, even so managed to be so freshly original that I think people just missed its brilliance. Or maybe it was simply too soon after Friends and West Wing ended for viewers to accept lead actors Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford as anything else but Chandler and Josh? Too bad because those characters were funny and real. Their story was thought provoking, it commented on social issues, and the whole thing gave us a glimpse into the deliciously dramatic "backstage" of a set like Saturday Night Live and a network like NBC. For example, the storyline about canceling a smart show in favor of yet another totally brainless reality TV crapfest? Well, that is what was really going on with NBC at the time! Yet nobody noticed that Studio Sixty was commenting on itself. Check how many reality shows NBC now has -- a more bitter irony would have been if Studio Sixty was replaced by one of them. (It was replaced by The Black Donnellys, something so un-memorable that I had to look it up just now. And yeah, that was replaced by something called The Real Wedding Crashers that I don't even want to mention in civilized conversation.)

There's easily another dozen I can use as examples if I were to sit here and really think about it.

For the 2008 fall season, there is only one new show I may kinda like. I'm not telling which one made it onto my "good" list, because I'd like to see it go for at least three seasons. Not you, The Mentalist and Eleventh Hour, you're safe.