Cancelled: Chase, Law and Order: LA, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, America's Most Wanted

Oh hi. Did you hear the news about these shows? Yep cancelled. I'll tell you what? I'm not letting Kingpin go down with a fight. I, I, what year is it again?


Chase- It looks like NBC had problems effectively canning this. At the start of the week, it was a go, season 2, even those the last episodes sucked. Now my staff has sent me the sad news via carrier pigeon that Chase is going the way of Union Square and Herman's Head. Chase starred the lovely Kelli Giddish as Annie Something, a hard-edged and dedicated US Marshall chasing bad guys and stuff. This show did have some nice production values but really aside from Giddish, there's wasn't much to recommend. Still this is better than the Marriage Ref, A Minute to Win It and of course the load of malarkey talked about below....

Grade ** 1/2

Law and Order: LA- Oh lawdy, this show was a goner from Jump Street. This isn't a cancellation, it's a mercy killing. Me? I'm a sad, sad man so I think this failure is justice for giving Boomtown the boot? Remember Boomtown, this is what this self-possession  this show could never attain. And guess what? I don't care if it's cancelled, in fact I'm glad the series order is down to zero. Heh!

The Mistakes: Many. Perhaps the most desperate move sending Detective Rex Winters (Skeet Ulrich) off in a hail of bullets. What's worse? Putting Ricardo Morales (Alfred Molina) back on the street as a cop. Ha! Now that was comedy...

The Very Idea: The hubris this show displayed was stupefying.

Grade *1/2

Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior- This is when the news hurts. It hurt! (Bad grammar semi-intended.) To those who didn't catch this, Suspect Behavior wasn't a reality show starring Jacob Lusk but another police procedural starring Forrest Whitaker (Mad Dog!) and my pretend wife Janeane Garofalo. Why this show was canceled is a mystery unto itself. CBS is the same place that offers us "stuff" like Survivor: Purgatory, The View, the Talk and that awful David Spade "comedy." They couldn't find room on the schedule for this? Ridiculous.

The Problems: None whatsoever. It shouldn't be cancelled.

Grade ***

America's Most Wanted- Yep, it's cancelled too. They're making short work of television programming over at Fox. They cancelled  The Tim Roth Show,  Human Target with Jack Deveraux 4, and that Christian Slater vehicle, Breaking In. Also claimed in the blast was America's Most Wanted. What? After 24 fun filled years, Fox gave one John Walsh the heave-ho and told him to chase them demons on his own time. The nerve! While AMW did unquestionably noble work, often the narrative, the cheesy acting and John Walsh's appearance (see pic) superseded whatever good that was done. And guess what? The ratings were tanking like crazy. You know why? Errbody's sick of Jim John Walsh.

Part 2: This is what John Walsh had to say about his show's staying power in an interview "AMW" had another thing going for it. No matter how aggressively the show led a fight to drain the nation's swampland of depravity, there was no danger it would ever run dry. "AMW" has content guaranteed to keep going forever."

Oh it does, does it? Well Fox says forever is 24 years. It looks like Walsh wants to keep fighting crime yet he was canny enough to worry about ratings. A man can't serve two masters! "Swampland of depravity?" Isn't that something.

Grade ***