When you think of big time television fails of 2009, your first thought is likely The Jay Leno Show. A year later, Movieline reviews ten more small screen failures -- including the most heartbreaking television cancellations and most horrifying cleavage on Sesame Street -- as we approach the end of the calendar year. Enjoy, and feel free to contribute your own suggestions ahead.
The ninth season of Fox's reality competition juggernaut wasn't just disappointing for judging reasons, but because America crowned Lee DeWyze -- a former paint salesman with Cat Stevens lyrics tattooed on his arm and the word "mediocrity" tattooed on his heart (I haven't seen it but I know it's there) -- as their Idol winner. Sadly, Siobhan Magnus, Didi Benami, and Casey James and Crystal Bowersox -- bad teeth, Type 1 diabetes and all -- would have been more deserving choices.
Despite prayers from fans -- and Twitter campaigns from cast members -- Starz pulled the plug on the beloved-but-barely-watched series after its second season, and an unsatisfying season series finale. That heartbreaking news came after Lizzy Caplan abandoned a CBS pilot to stay loyal to her on-screen catering crew was only salt in the wound. Though, maybe Ken Marino, Ryan Hansen and Martin Starr have a shot at being cast in Ben Silverman's thinly-veiled rip-off of the series, Party People. Or even better -- maybe Lizzy Caplan will make good on her promise to do a Party Down movie for free. At least one Rob Thomas series should get a happy big screen ending, right?
It may have been a smart business decision for Fox to pull the plug on its freshman series Lonestar -- about a baby-faced Texas con man (James Wolk, available for casting) -- after a few weeks of sadly low ratings. But for the sake of television -- as art, worthwhile entertainment or a medium for original story-telling -- didn't we all deserve a few more weeks of arguably the best drama to debut this fall? Especially when the network hosting said series airs three Gordon Ramsay reality shows? Apparently not. Fox ignored Lone Star creator Kyle Killen's open plea (as well as Movieline's campaign to save our favorite shirtless leading man) and executed Bob Allen. Rest in peace.
Television executives, you know better (don't you?) than to premiere a straight-up horrible television series with no redeeming qualities and try to pass it off as cool. From the get-go, My Generation was packed with stereotypes (holler at the rich kid with the BMW and the jock in the varsity jacket!), so much so that the characters were all introduced by stereotype title cards: the Overachiever, the Brain, the Jock, the Punk, the Beauty Queen, the Rich Kid, the Nerd, the Rock Star, the Wallflower and the Filmmaker. Deciding on marketing the series with abominable, laughable subway ads in which each generalized character posed pensively below a cartoon bubble broadcasting their inner monologue was probably a mistake, too. ("Dad, I'm done paying for your mistake," is not something you need to see on the R train.) Fortunately, ABC recognized that viewers were done paying for their mistake and canceled the series less than a month after its premiere.
All she wanted was a playdate with Elmo, but Katy Perry's wardrobe choice -- a yellow caped dress with plunging neckline, which, somehow, seemed fine to producers at the time of filming -- caused mass outrage among parents of Sesame Street's young audience; the singer's segment was quickly pulled from the network. After the fallout, Elmo vowed to schedule another playdate with "Miss Katy," Jason Bateman made sure to keep his shirt buttoned during his own segment with Elmo, and Katy Perry retaliated with a bouncy Saturday Night Live sketch. (Also by enlisting a Simpsons character for oral sex.)
This season's worst episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by the Iron Man 2 actress was not good for anyone -- not the audience, not the writers, not the cast members -- except for maybe Jane Lynch because her lackluster show was overshadowed by, as Movieline's SNL expert Mike Ryan put it, this startlingly unfunny episode. On the bright side, at least Arcade Fire made the episode watchable...for a few minutes.
In spite of a big "f*ck you" from Dancing with the Stars host Tom Bergeron, conspiracy theorists prevailed during the show's eleventh U.S. season thanks to the suspiciously unsinkable Bristol Palin. The most awkward performer of the season, Movieline's DWTS expert Louis Virtel determined that the daughter of the former vice presidential candidate survived thanks to her mother's Republican fan base, a touch of the Sanjaya Syndrome and finally, the fact that conspiracy theorists were not dialing in to vote (even if they were orchestrating anthrax scares). Even Movieline's friend and fellow recapper Erin Andrews insinuated that Bristol's high scores from the judges seemed unfair. Alas, after nationwide outrage, Bristol finished third and did not get the chance to wave a middle finger at her haters as she had hoped.
As far as bombastic fictional characters releasing memoirs go, television audiences hoped that Glee's Sue Sylvester or Mad Men's Roger Sterling would be the first to cross into the publishing industry. Indeed, we got our wish in the form of Roger Sterling's book, Sterling's Gold: Wit and Wisdom of an Ad Man, which was published in November. If you had hoped for juicy accounts of relationships with Joan, cringe-worthy memories of romps with Miss Blankenship or hilariously off color party stories though, you would be disappointed because the book was just a series of witticisms that at most might entertain for a maximum of ten minutes as a stocking suffer. Roger Sterling and Mad Men fans, you deserve better.
In an effort to thank his fans for their undying support throughout a tumultuous parting with NBC and a continent-wide comedy tour, Conan O'Brien promised fans that they would get to choose the first guest of his new TBS show. Well, they would get to pick the first guest of his new TBS guest from a list of possible guests including Justin Bieber, Pope Benedict, the Sultan of Brunei and Jack Nicholson. In actuality, the "First Guest Contest" was another strange CoCo joke, the humor of which was lost when the contest was reported by legitimate news sources. When it came to the first episode of Conan, the host introduced Arlene Wagner, curator of Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum, as the first guest, a gag that fell flat and set the tone for Conan's unremarkable first episode.
Whether you file this new E! reality series under the category tragic or apocolypse signifier, one thing is for certain: when Paul Gottlieb Nipkow imagined the first television back in the late 1800s, he probably never envisioned that his invention would be used to broadcast footage of shallow brides-to-be competing for breast implants and new noses. Or maybe he did?