Pre-Upfronts Cancellations and Renewals

This past week saw a flurry of renewal, cancellation, and pickup news from many networks which makes sense since this coming week, they will all present their new schedules at the annual upfronts. FOX started off the barrage of news this past Tuesday by canceling all of the yet-to-be-renewed bubble shows they had on their lineup. Since they renewed Fringe a few weeks back though, I was pretty nonplussed by the massacre.

In the days that followed, NBC and ABC chimed in with their decisions. Thankfully, most of the shows I regularly watch and enjoy have already been renewed, but there were still some recent cancellations and renewals that I want to comment on:

Chuck - Renewed. Despite having stopped watching the show in midseason, I'm very happy this show gets to live on just a little bit more. And now that everyone involved is sure that the next 13 episodes will be the show's last, I'm confident that they'll be able to weave a satisfying final arc for this little show that could.

V - Canceled. With the miracle renewals of Fringe and Chuck, I expected this show to also get renewed, but alas it wasn't meant to be. I'm not exactly mourning its end even though I made it no lie how impressed I was by its three leading ladies (Elizabeth Mitchell, Morena Baccarin, and Laura Vandervoort). May they all find another project worthy of them. Plus I actually really liked how the series ended with the aliens on top.

Brothers & Sisters - Canceled. I was a bit shocked by this, but again not really mourning it. Just thought it would be the type of show where the network would bend over backward to at least give them an actual end date to conclude the series. With that said, the writers did a good job these last few episodes to make sure all of the Walkers are in a good place. So other than missing Holly/Rebecca, the final episode works just fine as a series finale.

Happy Endings - Renewed. I'm so very delighted about this news. It really is the only new show this whole TV season that has impressed me, which also says a lot about the state of the new shows that premiered this season. But hey, that's not this show's fault. Can't wait to see more from this cast and crew.

Mr Sunshine, No Ordinary Family, and The Event - Canceled. Every single one. So speaking of disappointing new shows... I saw at least a handful of episodes of these three and with The Event, I actually saw all of its episodes before it went on a midseason break, but ultimately they all just failed to live up to expectations.

As I said before, they were other shows canceled or renewed, but I either don't watch them or don't really have any comments on their fates. CBS and The CW haven't made similar announcements, but with Supernatural already set to come back, I really am only waiting for the fate of The Good Wife. I'll go deeper into my thoughts on each network's new schedules as they present them in the next few days.