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Why We Only Have Ourselves to Blame for the Cancellation of Lone Star
We can’t blame Fox for this one
James Wolk or Kyle Chandler? (Photo: Fox)
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As long as we’re defending huge franchises and conglomerations that really don’t need our support, let’s turn our attention to Fox. Yesterday they announced the cancellation of Lone Star, not only the season’s most promising premiere on that network, but on any network. It was clever, surprisingly funny and its lead actor (James Wolk) looks exactly like Coach from Friday Night Lights, which is never a bad thing. Plus, Jon Voight, if that’s your thing.
But it got shitcanned, and like how I want to hate George Lucas and can’t, I want to hate Fox…but can’t. First off, they gave us The Simpsons, the greatest show of all-time, and if an artist like Joni Mitchell is still coasting off one good album that came out 39 years ago (Blue), why can’t a television network do the same thing? Unlike Joni Mitchell, though, Fox has also “released” The X-Files, King of the Hill, Futurama, Malcolm in the Middle and Arrested Development.
Ah, Arrested Development, the ultimate “you need to watch this” show that nobody watched then, but everyone watches now. People are still pissed at Fox for the way they handled Arrested, but the show never got good ratings—in fact, sometimes the ratings were CW-level, and I don’t mean Gossip Girl CW level—and it still stuck around for three seasons. Plus, by the end of the third season, the writers were clearly running out of ideas, so maybe it’s a good thing it didn’t stick around longer.
Plus, Fox has given a shot to Firefly, Dollhouse, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, The Tick, The Ben Stiller Show, Undeclared and Wonderfalls, none of which would have a chance on CBS (too old) or NBC (too classy). Fact is, maybe Fox didn’t do the greatest job of promoting any of these shows, but it’s on us to watch them. I actually saw a lot of ads for Lone Star, but its premiere only got 4.1 million viewers—and the second episode did even worse, with 3.8 million, nearly 8 million less than Mike & Molly, a.k.a. a sitcom about fat people.
I hate myself for defending Fox, but if we don’t watch, why should they bother airing it?