The graveyard of cancelled television series is a vast place, ranging from dad-centric sitcoms cut down in their prime to futuristic thrillers that never saw it coming. But how can we tell which are bound for failure and which will survive to the ripe old age where they run the risk of "jumping the shark?"
It’s a game that TV executives play all the time, so it's hard to tell what will really stick with audiences. But based on premise, cast and creator, here are the four small screen shows most likely to never see that hallowed green light of season two.
The Player (NBC)
With Wesley Snipes in a prominent role, NBC is trying to bluff their way through a convoluted premise for a TV show. The show is set in Las Vegas, where casinos are organizing a gambling ring in which high-rollers place bets on whether a crime will be carried out successfully or not.
The casinos use "the player," a trained mercenary, to ensure that these crimes come with a certain degree of difficulty. Philip Winchester, star of Cinemax’s “Strike Back,” plays Alex Kane in the title role.
In this cluttered premise, he is also trying to solve the murder of his wife, mostly by using motorcycles and machine guns. The show, written by John Rogers (who wrote the first draft of “Transformers”) and directed by Bharat Nalluri (director of a poorly received sequel to “The Crow”), feels like an amorphous combination of B-action movie plots with gambling thrown in to give it some semblance of originality.
The trailers seek to draw the audience into high adrenaline shootouts set in gilded, gaudy Las Vegas full of shallow thrills and presumably little story.
The Detour (TBS)
Has the idea of National Lampoon’s Vacation been beaten into the ground yet? Well TBS is here to make certain that it is. Produced by former "The Daily Show" correspondent Samantha Bee and starring her husband, Jason Jones, this series will follow a family’s TV-MA roadtrip antics.
Natalie Zea is cast in the role of the mother as she and Jones give voice to a show that Bee has described to Vulture as dark, really funny and dirty in every conceivable way. Vacation comedies are the slapstick stuff of the summer, not the kind of thing that talented comedians with an established past in political satire necessarily need to reinterpret.
Grandfathered (FOX)
Dads, and by extension grandfathers, have little luck with FOX audiences. Yet in the wake of the already canceled “Dads” and “Surviving Jack,” the network has decided to throw John Stamos back into the sitcom game.
It’s the age of “Modern Family” and dads are tolerated as the dorky, culturally illiterate support beams that allow sitcoms to function. In “Grandfathered,” John Stamos plays the charismatic restaurateur father of Josh Peck who in turn plays a new father.
With the poor track record of father-son comedies, I doubt “Grandfathered” will be on air long enough to see Stamos turn grey.
"Look at the job I did on you!" #Grandfathered premieres Tuesday, September 29 on FOX. pic.twitter.com/Mxau0YZQJe
— Grandfathered (@Grandfathered) September 20, 2015
Wrecked (TBS)
In “Wrecked,” the 11 characters, which include a wannabe cop, an outspoken feminist and the fictional vice president of inferior search engine Bing, are stranded on an island after a plane crash. The desert island is something of a cliche among cliches, with the possible exception of the highly successful “Lost,” which added many surreal elements to that simple idea.
It’s unclear what this new series could add to the well-established concept. It has been repeatedly billed as a comedic take on “Lost,” but there has been no comment regarding whether the show will include the same reality bending elements of "Lost" or if the desert island setting is where the comparison ends.
There are some funny people included in the cast but for a concept so steeped in pastiche, the writers have a serious uphill battle ahead of them.
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Reach the reporter at malaridw@asu.edu, or on Twitter @Marco_Alarid
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