The past 12 months has seen more ridiculous programming interruptions than I can remember. It started for me last Fall during season two of LOST. Know this: if you haven’t watched LOST and you watch television, you are missing out. But last season’s programming schedule was so funky that some fans of the show checked out. Whatever the excuses, we the fans waited two weeks sometimes for a new episode. That’s ridiculous. I have heard that the reason for the delay was the late creation of the show in relation to the beginning of the season. So be it. I have not had any complaints against the show so far this season (except the apparent increase in commercial time – which is not the show’s fault). This year, it’s the World Series on FOX.
Maybe it happened last year too. I can’t remember. I don’t pay attention to baseball. It’s bad enough that we don’t get to watch House MD or Standoff until the stupid World Series is over. But on top of that, some competing prime time networks refused to air new episodes of popular shows to compete against the World Series. I understand the strategy behind not “wasting” a single episode of viewers, but it also expresses a lack of confidence in the quality of one’s programming.
If ABC has no faith in their shows to compete, they shouldn’t schedule them at all. To pull a show because it seems a given that the show will lose viewers to a sporting event is frustrating. The Superbowl is one thing. It’s one game on one night. But any sport that has multiple game championships does not deserve special privileges. I won’t even go into how ridiculous it is to have a seven game championship series (even for my beloved sport of basketball). That’s for another post. It is enough for now to say that I speak for many when I say that I am not happy to lose favorite shows due to a baseball game series. And since I’m on the subject, I have two complaints: who’s bright idea was it to move Kidnapped to Saturday? It’s a great show. What, it couldn’t compete with the others? Have you seen this cast? Delroy Lindo is the head FBI investigator. Emmy award winning Dana Delaney stars as the mother of the kidnapped boy. Academy-Award winning Timothy Hutton (of Nero Wolfe fame) stars as the father.
If that’s not enough, Jeremy Sisto (White Squall, Suicide Kings, Hideaway, Clueless) plays the professional kidnap retrieval expert. He’s ex-FBI, and he breaks any rules necessary to bring kids back to their parents. It’s a great story. It’s another season long story, like 24 and LOST. It is not a carbon copy of any other show. And what about Crossing Jordan? I checked NBC’s online programming schedule three weeks ago and it had Crossing Jordan slated for Friday nights at 8pm EST. I went back to check again this week, and Crossing Jordan has disappeared. Now there’s a stupid gameshow instead…. I just did a little research and it appears that Crossing Jordan will appear around midseason. Why? I have no idea. The gameshow will move to 9pm EST supposedly.
I’m not sure I believe it. Stations are becoming more fickle and unpredictable with every new season. Of course, the number of shows worth watching has increased too, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that even the TV Guide doesn’t know when a given show will definitely be on. Crossing Jordan was one of my shows.
Don’t mess with my shows.