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Giving up on a show after just the pilot episode

11K views 112 replies 43 participants last post by  gweempose 
#1 ·
I am reading all the threads on the new shows and noticing how many people are just deleting a SP after the pilot - or for some, not even before it ends.

Yes, I was guilty of this last year with Under the Dome and another one that is now a hit. I starting thinking about this and decided to revise my thinking for the fall season. Give it at least 3 episodes...or more even.

Are viewers turning into quick to delete without giving a show a chance to really blossom?

There have also been several shows that I wish HAD gone more than one season. Shows I really enjoyed but am not sure why others didn't - at least enough to have the studios keep them around. And of course there are the shows that I wonder about why they are STILL around.

I am wondering how many shows you gave up on and then they went on to be hits or at least on for a few seasons?

Do you give a show more than just the pilot a chance? Let them develop, grow or change at all?
 
#52 ·
I was going to start watching Breaking Bad, but it's already been cancelled, so what's the point?
While I understand your point, you picked the wrong show. It wasn't cancelled, it finished its run. It is complete. Start to finish.

Now you can watch it, since you know it won't leave you hanging.:D
 
#53 ·
I think it's dumb too, but some people refuse to watch/immediately delete a show when it's cancelled. So they'll only watch the show while it's still being made.

I will continue to watch, if I like the show, even when I know it ends on a cliffhanger.
Why do you say it's dumb? What difference does it make?
People stop watching tv shows all the time for lots of reasons. There is no reason to invest time in something you've decided is no longer worth your time.
 
#54 ·
Why do you say it's dumb? What difference does it make?
People stop watching tv shows all the time for lots of reasons. There is no reason to invest time in something you've decided is no longer worth your time.
I'm not saying it's dumb, people do what they do. But how do you know if a show is worth your time or not, until you watch it?
 
#56 ·
I'm not saying it's dumb, people do what they do. But how do you know if a show is worth your time or not, until you watch it?
If it's likely to be canned before finishing the season, it's not worth my time. Pretty simple actually.
 
#58 ·
I don't see it that way.

There's no shows you could have enjoyed for the one season (or less) that it was on? Nielsen or the Networks decide for you what you like?
They don't decide what I like. They help me decide what I'm going to commit my limited time to. Any time spent watching a doomed show is time I'm not watching and keeping up on a keeper.

I'm sure there are some shows I could have enjoyed for a season but I dropped them in favor of shows I have enjoyed for multiple seasons.
 
#59 ·
I never nuke a sitcom after just watching the pilot. But after seeing the 2nd episode of Dads, I'm starting to rethink that philosophy.
Technically, I nuked this after the 2nd episode, but since I didn't watch the 2nd episode, I guess I gave up after the pilot. My thought process was that it was so bad that even if it got significantly better it would still be pretty bad.

I have pretty low standards, so giving up during or after the pilot doesn't happen very often.
 
#61 ·
I did not even make it all the way through the first epsiode of Super Fun Night last night.
I was looking to bail then when the fat chick (hey, I'm a fat dude, so I can decide if that was dumb or not) decided to climb on the piano to look sexy during the horrible sing off battle, that is when I hit stop and deleted everything.

What a horrible show. I wish I could delete it from my recording history, too.
 
#64 ·
Any time spent watching a doomed show is time I'm not watching and keeping up on a keeper ... I'm sure there are some shows I could have enjoyed for a season but I dropped them in favor of shows I have enjoyed for multiple seasons.
I agree that it can be very frustrating to get really into a show only to have it yanked from the schedule without any plot resolution. Because of this, I will often record an entire season of a show and wait to watch it until I know it has been renewed for a second season. That being said, there are some truly amazing shows that got the ax way too soon. I recently started a thread on this very topic:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=9841540#post9841540

I can't imagine never having watched Firefly simply because it got cancelled in its first season. I'd put the 15 episodes that do exist up against the complete multi-season runs of almost any other show out there.
 
#65 ·
I got a chance to watch the pilot episode of "Sean Saves the World" and it was awful. I wanted to like it because I like Megan Hilty but it was beyond bad. Annoying laugh track, wasn't funny. Couldn't make it through the pilot.
It wasn't the worst new sitcom of the night in my opinion, Welcome To The Family took that prize, but it was pretty bad.
 
#66 ·
I agree that it can be very frustrating to get really into a show only to have it yanked from the schedule without any plot resolution. Because of this, I will often record an entire season of a show and wait to watch it until I know it has been renewed for a second season. That being said, there are some truly amazing shows that got the ax way too soon. I recently started a thread on this very topic:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=9841540#post9841540

I can't imagine never having watched Firefly simply because it got cancelled in its first season. I'd put the 15 episodes that do exist up against the complete multi-season runs of almost any other show out there.
And you never would have found those shows had you not watched them. I couldn't have imagined missing Terriers, but if I followed the credo of never watching shows that might get cancelled, I would have missed it. I'll watch stuff I like, and if it gets cancelled, cest la vie :)
 
#67 ·
So far, the celeb-led shows are failing in my book. Having been away in the UK for most of last week and this, we are just hitting the DVR for some of the pilots. Last night we watched Michael J Fox and Crazy Ones and the following is true for both of them. The celebs have their 'schtick' and, if the entire show is based on that, it'll get very old very quickly. Maybe they'll get a second episode viewing, but it's not a priority.

I was really looking forward to Brooklyn-Nine-Nine, but cancelled the SP after the first one. Even Andre couldn't save that mess.
 
#68 ·
And you never would have found those shows had you not watched them. I couldn't have imagined missing Terriers, but if I followed the credo of never watching shows that might get cancelled, I would have missed it. I'll watch stuff I like, and if it gets cancelled, cest la vie :)
I suspect you and I have very different viewing habits. If you don't mind my asking, how many hours of tv do you record and watch per week?
 
#70 ·
I suspect you and I have very different viewing habits. If you don't mind my asking, how many hours of tv do you record and watch per week?
I haven't figured it out, but I would say, on average, at least 4-6 shows per night (except Friday-Saturday). Some nights, more. And I have a whole host of movies and documentaries that I save up for slow periods. I also watch stuff on Netflix from time to time too (just finished United States of Tara for instance). So it's not like I hardly record anything. I record a lot. I think where we differ is I'll give shows a shot, even if the ratings are low, where you might wait for the ratings and if they are bad, you let it go. IMO, I just think you might miss out on a hidden gem from time to time :) If everyone watched like you, I'm afraid, all we'd get is reality shows and other cheap to make shows, because nobody would give anything other than that a chance. Unless of course the TV infrastructure changes with the times :)

Oh, and I should mention, that I'm an avid hockey and baseball fan, so very often, I will watch all or part of a game and catch up on the other stuff later.
 
#72 ·
I haven't figured it out, but I would say, on average, at least 4-6 shows per night (except Friday-Saturday). Some nights, more. And I have a whole host of movies and documentaries that I save up for slow periods. I also watch stuff on Netflix from time to time too (just finished United States of Tara for instance). So it's not like I hardly record anything. I record a lot. I think where we differ is I'll give shows a shot, even if the ratings are low, where you might wait for the ratings and if they are bad, you let it go. IMO, I just think you might miss out on a hidden gem from time to time :) If everyone watched like you, I'm afraid, all we'd get is reality shows and other cheap to make shows, because nobody would give anything other than that a chance. Unless of course the TV infrastructure changes with the times :)

Oh, and I should mention, that I'm an avid hockey and baseball fan, so very often, I will watch all or part of a game and catch up on the other stuff later.
Oh, I have no problem giving a show a shot. I've seen several of the shows in gweempose's list including Invasion, Life on Mars, Firefly, and Journeyman. Last year I stayed with Last Resort.

My issue is time and space. If I'm understanding you correctly, you are pretty much able to keep up with what you are recording for the most part? I can't. Right now I have 35 hours set to record each week but I can only realistically watch around 21 hours. With the amount of free space I have on my Tivo, I'll run out of free space in about 6 weeks. At that point something has to give.

I have about 350-375 hours of backlogged recordings dating back as far as 2006 (season 2 of Sleeper Cell). I simply can't keep up with all that I record and have to be a bit more discerning in what I choose to get involved in.

Of the dozen or so new shows I'm recording I've only watched the first episode of Sleepy Hollow. When I reach my storage tipping point, I have to decide to bail on a show I am currently watching or one I have saved up. That is when the ratings come into play. Last spring I had 666 Park Ave, Vegas, Red Widow, Zero Hour, and Do No Harm recorded but unwatched. I was down to only 12 hours (out of 157) left in free space. Those shows all got the boot which allowed me to continue recording the rest of the shows I was watching as well as later adding Orphan Black and Hannibal.
 
#73 ·
I'll generally dump a show if it's cancelled before I've started watching it. Maybe I would have liked it, but who knows, and quite frankly, I don't have the time. And for me, it's pretty simple, I just don't have the time for something that's already been deemed not worthy of continuing. The good thing is if I don't watch it, then at least I don't know whether I would have liked it, so I don't have to be pissed that it was canceled.

I've got so much stuff that I still need to watch that I'm not exactly running out of stuff to watch.
 
#74 ·
Why do you say it's dumb? What difference does it make?
People stop watching tv shows all the time for lots of reasons. There is no reason to invest time in something you've decided is no longer worth your time.
I'm not saying they can't use whatever reason they want to stop watching a show, but I continue to think it's dumb to stop watching a show and immediately delete all of the episodes JUST because it's been cancelled. If they were enjoying the show before, why not keep watching them.

Heck, I'll probably still watch *at least* the first episode of Lucky 7, even though I know it's already been cancelled. (If I don't watch the second, I might arguably be falling into the same trap.. but I'll really likely just leave it on my hard drive until that hard drive dies too, if I don't watch it soon after watching the first episode!)
 
#75 ·
I'm not saying they can't use whatever reason they want to stop watching a show, but I continue to think it's dumb to stop watching a show and immediately delete all of the episodes JUST because it's been cancelled. If they were enjoying the show before, why not keep watching them.

Heck, I'll probably still watch *at least* the first episode of Lucky 7, even though I know it's already been cancelled. (If I don't watch the second, I might arguably be falling into the same trap.. but I'll really likely just leave it on my hard drive until that hard drive dies too, if I don't watch it soon after watching the first episode!)
To me there is a great dependency on what type of show that it is. I'll watch a sitcom still even if it's been canceled. I even watched the unaired episodes of The B in Apt 23 and Ben and Kate. But I'm much more likely to skip a soon to be canceled show if it's more serial. I don't want to get into a story if I don't know how it's going to end.
 
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