Saturday, December 23, 2006

The Bad Thing About Complex Serials

TV dramas with a complex continuing storyline are great when they work. But when they fail to connect with a big enough audience, they get moved around or just plain cancelled without warning, leaving those viewers who enjoyed the show with a lot of hanging threads. Shows I watched this season that have been cancelled in just such a fashion: Vanished, The Nine, and now Daybreak.

Which confounds me, because Daybreak was an awesome show. Taye Diggs made a compelling lead, the mystery was deep (and for once, than goodness, not a comment on our current political landscape), and the show found some new twists to the Groundhog Day formula. The article I read about the cancellation says that thirteen episodes were produced (and since the premiere stated that the mystery would be solved in thirteen episodes, it looks like the story may be complete). ABC is planning to make subsequent episodes avaiable on-line, but it didn't specifywhether it would offer the entire rest of the series or just the next couple of episodes.

This is one show that deserves the Firefly DVD treatment.

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