ALCATRAZ And THE FINDER Get The Axe

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Midseason replacement rankings wiz vindicated. Kinda.

At the end of last year, I put together a list of the five best and five worst midseason replacement series that were set to debut on the networks in the coming weeks.  Of course, all the entries on the list were tailored to meet the needs of the discerning Complex reader, which is to say that each show had at least some tangential connection to the transgressive/criminal/mystery niche in which we here fall drooling to sleep every night.

Well, it’s crowin’ time.

The latest to officially fall are Fox’s The Finder and Alcatraz, numbers four and five, respectively, on the “Worst” list.  They joined the number one entry, NBC’s The Firm, which was cancelled in February with such speed and savagery that even the creators of The Playboy Club went “Damn!”

There is little surprising in this bit of news.  Alcatraz didn’t do anything to further J.J. Abrams’ sterling reputation.  Instead, it attempted to follow the enigmatic mold of Lost without first offering the viewer characters to invest in emotionally.  The Bones spinoff series, The Finder, relied too much on the goofiness of its mother series.  Luckily it didn’t have to do so for very long.

And that ain’t all, kiddies.  ABC’s twin entries onto the list, Missing and The River, numbers two and three, respectively, are looking certain to follow suit.  When that word comes down from on high, that will make for a clean sweep of the Big Bored Board.

Now naturally, any rousing victory that I have experienced in my life is always paired with an equal and opposite humiliating defeat, and this case will prove to be no exception.   In true smart-aleck style, my “Best” list was a mirror reflection of my “Worst” list, in reverse order.

To add insult to injury, my Honorable Mention entry, Awake, is also certain to be decapitated just as soon as the higher-ups at NBC find out that it’s still on the air.  At the time the original rankings went up, NBC had not even set an air date for the show.  Had that date been made available it would have been Numero Uno on the “Best” list, and I would never have wasted even two seconds of my life thinking about The River.  As it is, I embarassed myself with this regrettable post, which, hilariously, has been attributed to our own Matthew C. Funk in the move over here to Boomtron.  I won’t tell him if you don’t.

So, there you have it.  The Thrill of Victory and The Agony of Defeat, all in the time it took to wipe out a single box of Nutty Bars.  All things factored in, I give myself the standard C- that got me onto the streets with a diploma in hand back in the ’90s.

2 Comments

1. 

   Benoit Lelievre

   May 10, 2012 at 11:49 pm

   Not surprised Alcatraz got chopped. It didn’t deliver what people loved Lost for. Great characters.

   Reply
2. 

   Jimmy Callaway

   May 13, 2012 at 2:34 pm

   Man, the mid-season is always so depressing.  Either really good shows are unable to find an audience or, more often, really awful shows take up valuable air-time, even if only briefly.  I miss Raines, is what I’m getting at here.

   Reply