The 2007 Lineup: 35 Soon-To-Be-Cancelled Shows

The 2007 Lineup: 35 Soon-To-Be-Cancelled Shows

All the major networks (and The CW) unveiled their new fall schedules last week at events known to industry types as the "upfronts." Generally these events are ways for people in the industry to annually hook up and go on day-long benders, but a few insiders will tell you that they also have to do with... advertising rates? Something stupid like that.

Nearly every year, in between all the drinking and fucking, executives usually find a few minutes to talk about the new shows coming to their networks this fall before they're canceled mid-season and replaced by another hour of Deal or No Deal. Here's the shitstorm the networks trotted out this year.

NBC

The Bionic Woman

In a move that is shockingly not a joke, the struggling peacock network has decided to bring back this 1970s show about a half-mechanical woman and her shockingly realistic android feathered hair. It's probably a safe bet to say it's been updated to be dark and sinister like the new Battlestar Galactica, but personally I would prefer to see a simple technology update, so that instead of space-age moon-boot gadgetry, she's entirely composed of telecommunications devices, so that we can finally see that old "hold on, I'm getting a fax" joke in a realistic context.

Journeyman

A newspaper reporter suddenly starts traveling through time and helping people. So basically it's Quantum Leap, but instead of helping set things right in the past, the main character just takes notes on things and keeps screaming, "What a scoop!"

Chuck

A guy who works at a big-box electronics store opens an e-mail that downloads a whole database of government secrets into his brain. Seriously, that's the premise of the show. Stay tuned for the second season, when he gets a disk full of U.N. Ambassadors' home phone numbers stuck in his rectum!

Life

A cop who was falsely imprisoned for years returns to the force with a whole different outlook. A true renegade, he rides around a motorcycle with his Native American sidekick and changes his name to Lorenzo Lamas.

The IT Crowd

It's hilarious hijinks for three IT guys in an office somewhere in America. Finally, audiences can get an extra half hour at home listening to guys sneering at people because they have to do their job and talking about how "actually, Gerard Christopher didn't play Superboy in the first season."

Lipstick Jungle

From the author of the book that inspired Sex and the City comes a show that isn't like Sex and the City at all because this one only has three upper-class female main characters and Brooke Shields instead of Sarah Jessica Parker. Completely different.

The Singing Bee

A game show in which contestants will have to accurately sing the lyrics of popular songs. So unfortunately this isn't going to start a trend of shows about anthropomorphic animals doing human jobs like I had hoped. So no pipe-fitting bears. At least not yet.

World Moves

Famous American Idol black guy Randy Jackson hosts a dance competition show. Maybe he'll call somebody "dawg!" Wouldn't that be something?

Heroes: Origins

See all the hospitals where your favorite Heroes characters were born! You'll never guess where Hiro's mom gave birth to him! Here's a hint: It's in Japan!


ABC

Cavemen

So wait, you want to make a half-hour show with a season of at least 13 episodes out of those cavemen from the Geico commercials? How can that go wrong?!? And just in case anyone was wondering, I'm going to reveal the premise behind every joke you'll ever see on the show: "See? It's because they're cavemen."

Sam I Am

In the touching television adaptation of the Sean Penn movie of the same name, a retarded guy does things that are really discomforting and make you feel bad. No, I'm just kidding, it's actually a show starring the daughter from Married...With Children that no one's going to watch.

Carpoolers

Four guys at different stages in their life ride together to work. Imagine the intense drama of Kevin wondering what kind of donut Jeff is eating. Or if Tim, the driver, is jealous of Hank, who's catching a couple Z's in the back seat. Shit, why did Hank drink all that coffee? Will they ever get out of this traffic jam?!?! Tuesday nights on ABC!

Pushing Daisies

A detective discovers that he can touch people and bring them back from the dead. Which throws his recent necrophilia kick straight to hell, let me tell you.

Private Practice

Some woman who was on Grey's Anatomy stars in a spinoff of Grey's Anatomy - because nothing makes for better TV than people who are supposed to be spending their day saving lives instead gossiping and giggling like middle schoolers. And now it's taking place in a different city!

Dirty Sexy Money

In the most avant garde new show of the season, ABC devotes an entire hour of airtime a week to nothing but artfully composed shots of 100-dollar bills that have been dropped in a mud puddle and have stick-figure naked women drawn on them. Critics are expected to love it.

Big Shots

Four dudes are all, like, really rich and head companies or something. Look, it's a show about douche bags, so watch it if you're into that sort of thing.

Women's Murder Club

Otherwise known as "marriage." Am I right, fellas? Huh?

CBS

Viva Laughlin

A "mystery drama with music" produced by professional angry magician and Wolverine Hugh Jackman about a guy who wants to open a casino but doesn't have any money. It's like someone threw up a premise for a television show.

The Big Bang Theory

In the pilot episode, cosmic gases come closer and closer together...as if they are forming something. What could they be doing? Stay tuned for 21 more episodes to find out!

Cane

A large Cuban-American family runs a sugar and rum business in Florida, but it quickly becomes a drug business. In a shocking mid-season power struggle, star Jimmy Smits tries to wrest power from his father by growing a bigger mustache than him, but in a shocking twist, the matriarch of her family seizes control when she reveals the size of her mustache, which fills an entire Olympic-sized swimming pool.

Kid Nation

In this reality show, a group of 40 prepubescent kids take up residence in a ghost town with no adults. Things take a sour turn when Piggy, the glasses-wearing fat kid, is crushed by a falling piano. Soon after, everyone starves because no one has a job.

Moonlight

A private investigator...who is also a vampire! If this show succeeds, stay tuned for several similar shows next year, like Werewolf Chef, Frankenstein Nanny and Zombie Magistrate Court Judge.

Swingtown

A mid-season replacement about 1970s era wife-swapping. So it's the premise of any number of porn films without the nudity or graphic sex? Consider me sold!



FOX

K-Ville

A cop show set in New Orleans (the "K" stands for "Katrina"). Hard-nosed police officer Scads Kneecap and his partner Charles "Wrinkles" Relish take the city back after years of it being run by rogue weather phenomena. In the pilot, they take down a ring of tornadoes that have been beating up hookers while digging deeper into a low pressure system that's been spreading drugs all over town.

New Amsterdam

A New York City homicide detective is actually a guy who was granted immortality 360 years ago. So, it's Highlander without the swords or the Reckoning or Sean Connery or basically anything cool. Great.

Back To You

Kelsey Grammer and the wife from Everybody Loves Raymond are a broadcast news team in Pittsburgh...blah blah blah, I'm falling asleep just typing this.



Kitchen Nightmares

So you're at the breakfast nook, right? And all of the sudden, the red-hot George Foreman grill is flying right at your face! And, what's this? The refrigerator has turned into the ex-girlfriend who dumped you to marry your douche of a brother! Ahhhhh! And then you wake up, and you're all like, "That was fucked up."

The Search for the Next Great American Band

Sorry, TV show, I've already found the next great American band. They're called "Maneaters: A Tribute to Hall and Oates," and they will change the face of rock forever.

Nashville

This is a reality show about attention-hungry people trying to make it in the country music industry by whoring themselves American Idol-style, but here they're wearing cowboy boots.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles

After destroying the liquid metal Terminator from Terminator 2, Sarah and John Connor move on with their lives, only to find out that the T-800 model has become governor of California. When the T-800 cannot get Democratic state legislators to agree on a state budget plan, a deadlock threatens to shut down important state services and programs! Can Sarah and John kill the legislators to stop the deadlock and save the future?

The Return of Jezebel James

Two estranged sisters move in together when one agrees to carry another's baby. How much do you want to bet they're totally different from one another? And that they'll get into wild disagreements? Man, I can't wait for this breath of fresh air on the airwaves!

The CW

Life is Wild

A New York City family moves to the wilds of Africa. Luckily, there's a Starbucks there, so they can get coffee and all the free wireless Internet they want.



Aliens in America

A regular American 16-year-old's life is turned completely upside-down when an exchange student from Pakistan moves to town! From the producers of Carl the Lovable Xenophobe and Saturday Night Lynch Mob.


Reaper

A guy in his early twenties discovers his parents sold their souls to the devil years ago and now has to go around the world doing Satan's dirty work. Suburban goth kids everywhere will proclaim that the protagonist is just like them before they have to put on their Polo shirts so they can get in their shift at Borders.

Gossip Girl

A very rich, very spoiled girl not unlike a certain heiress famous for flashing her snatch to the world and not much else, discovers that money can't buy everything. Clearly, the show is fiction, because the real world, money clearly can do anything you want, like reduce your jail sentence by half and remove you from the general prison population.

Thanks, justice system!

Matt needs to sleep for about two weeks after spending much longer than he intended on this piece. In the meantime, read his blog, the not-very-cleverly titled MW Blog .

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