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Why was Blockbuster set in the present day?
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00:00The world of TV sure is a cruel one, and in the age of streaming where shows can be cancelled
00:05mere days after you've binged them, it feels like an especially tough landscape. Many beloved
00:10shows are cancelled for reasons that are baffling or nebulous at best, where vague business red
00:15tape or behind the scenes squabblings kills them off, but it's also fair to say that many
00:19cancelled shows got the chop for blindingly obvious reasons. In some cases it's all down
00:24to fundamental problems with the show's format, presentation and storytelling, while in others
00:28it's the result of network executives simply not giving the series a chance to find an audience.
00:34With some not impossible changes though, things could have turned out quite differently for these
00:38promising series. And with that in mind, I'm Adam from WhatCulture and here are 10 cancelled TV
00:44shows that made obvious mistakes. 10. Trying to outsmart the internet, Westworld
00:50Westworld's first season was a major hit for HBO, building a committed audience of fans who loved to
00:55obsess over basically every aspect of the show's lore. But after the intense fandom managed to
01:00basically predict most of the first season's big reveals, creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy went
01:05on the defensive for season 2, even rewriting aspects of the plot after fans figured things out.
01:10Hilariously, Nolan actually asked the vocal fan community to stop guessing the plot, and for many,
01:16Nolan and Joy's attempts to outsmart the internet signalled the show's creative downfall, resulting in the
01:213rd and 4th seasons becoming increasingly reliant on convoluted and arguably nonsensical storytelling
01:27that fans couldn't predict. Rather than embrace the ingenuity of the fandom and accept that the
01:31internet will always win this game, they tried to one-up them, resulting in writing that left many
01:37fans unsatisfied. The show's ratings had steadily declined season upon season, and the season 4 finale
01:43pulled in an embarrassingly low 391,000 viewers, compared to 2.24 million for the first season's finale.
01:51Given both shows' massive production budget and Warner Brothers' desperate need to shed costs amid
01:56executive reshufflings, it was a no-brainer that Westworld would get the chop. But had Nolan and Joy
02:01stuck the storytelling course and ignored the internet, things could have gone very differently.
02:069. Airing episodes out of order, Firefly
02:10It certainly wasn't creator Joss Whedon's fault that his cult-fave sci-fi western series Firefly
02:15was cancelled by Fox after just 11 of its 14 filmed episodes were aired. As was a depressingly
02:21common occurrence in the late 90s and early noughts, Fox gave the show such little chance to succeed that
02:26it basically amounts to sabotage. The big problem? Fox decided to air the episodes out of order,
02:32because they felt the pilot episode Serenity wasn't a satisfactory action-packed introduction to
02:37the series, and so the second episode, The Train Job, was retooled into a second pilot, in turn
02:43depriving audiences of the crucial onboarding and character information present in the original pilot.
02:49The rest of the season aired episodes in a seemingly semi-random order, creating a disjointed and
02:54occasionally nonsensical feel which unsurprisingly turned many viewers off. Fox ultimately cancelled the
03:00show amid declining ratings, but once Firefly hit DVD and people saw the episodes in the correct
03:06chronological order, it became a word-of-mouth success. This led to Whedon getting the green
03:11light to produce a feature film sequel, Serenity, which while well received, failed to turn a profit
03:16at the box office, effectively ending the series for good.
03:208. Forcing David Lynch To Reveal The Killer, Twin Peaks
03:24David Lynch and Mark Frost's Twin Peaks was a water cooler show like few others.
03:29Everyone was talking about it when it premiered in 1990, desperate to know the identity of Laura
03:34Palmer's, Sherry Lee's, murderer. But Lynch and Frost, well aware that the show's days would be
03:39numbered once they let the cat out of the bag, actually never intended to reveal who the killer
03:43was. However, network ABC saw things quite differently. With ratings sharply dropping at the
03:50start of the second season, ABC executives forced the duo to reveal the killer's identity just seven
03:56episodes into season two. And though the episode in question saw a major rating spike,
04:00the divisive nature of the reveal only further caused the ratings to nosedive thereafter.
04:06Lynch and Frost's involvement with the show also lessened after the killer reveal,
04:10which may have attributed to the decline in quality through the remainder of the season.
04:14By the end of season two, the ratings were a mere fraction of the season one premiere,
04:19causing ABC to cancel Twin Peaks while leaving fans on an agonizing cliffhanger. Lynch quite rightfully
04:25said that the network killed the goose that laid the golden eggs by making them reveal Laura's killer.
04:30In something of a happy ending though, the show was given a belated revival in 2017
04:35with Lynch's acclaimed Twin Peaks, The Return, which aired on Showtime.
04:39Number 7 Having no long-term roadmap, Heroes
04:42When Heroes debuted back in 2006, many felt that it was The Next Lost,
04:47a well-crafted supernatural series focused around a compelling mystery and fascinating cast of characters.
04:53But after a stellar first season, it soon enough became clear that creator Tim Krink simply didn't have a
04:59mapped out direction for the overarching story and characters. From season two onward,
05:04critics and fans alike complained about the meandering storytelling, implausible character
05:09motivations and generally slapdash, throw everything and see what sticks, nature of writing.
05:14In 2010, the very day that its final episode aired, the AV Club published a fascinating interview with
05:20Kring where he effectively confirmed that he and the show's other writers were basically making
05:25things up as they went along, and would routinely change things on the fly if they felt like it.
05:30As such, it's little surprise that as the scope grew, heroes became increasingly disjointed,
05:35until only the most diehard fans were still with it. By the end of season four,
05:40the ratings were only one third of those in season one, and so NBC decided to can it.
05:45This is a common problem with breakout word of mouth series, many of which are created with an
05:50initially modest scope, and quickly fall apart when the creatives can't chart an engaging,
05:54multi-season path forward.
05:566. Releasing All At Once
05:591899
06:001899 was the new series from dark creators Chianti Fries and Baron Bo Oda, and Netflix
06:06clearly banked on it becoming another word-of-mouth hit mystery show. However,
06:101899 was unceremoniously cancelled just six weeks after its premiere, with subsequent reports noting that
06:17Netflix canned the show due to its low completion rate, whereby only a small fraction of viewers
06:21actually finished the entire series. There were a few mistakes Netflix clearly made with
06:26distributing 1899, namely releasing it just six days before Wednesday hit their platform
06:32and sucked all the air out of the room, and perhaps worst of all, dropping it all at once.
06:37Though Netflix has popularized the binge model and only deviated from it on a few special occasions,
06:42such as splitting Stranger Things fourth season in two, 1899 would have been a perfect show to
06:47experiment with a weekly release model. Given that mystery-centric shows benefit
06:51massively from audience chatter and theory crafting, 1899 probably would have fared better by, say,
06:57dropping two episodes per week over the course of a month. That way discussions would have had time to
07:02grow, and it would have also been given space away from Wednesday, rather than being basically
07:07forgotten about the moment that the Addams Family series was released. This would in no way have
07:12guaranteed that 1899 fared well enough to get renewed, but dumping all the episodes at once with
07:17minimal marketing ahead of a far more mainstream show was basically setting it up to fail.
07:225. Hiring Scott Buck as showrunner Iron Fist
07:26Marvel's Iron Fist lasted for two seasons before Netflix cancelled it, and for many the reason for
07:31its failure to retain an audience was obvious, hiring showrunner Scott Buck. Though Buck is an
07:36acclaimed, award-winning writer for his work on Six Feet Under, Rome, and Dexter, he is also largely
07:42credited with ruining Dexter after becoming the showrunner during its maligned final three seasons.
07:48As soon as Buck was announced to be overseeing Iron Fist, fans expressed vocal skepticism about his
07:53ability to deliver a quality end result, and so it wasn't remotely surprising when the first season
07:59received near-universal critical scorn. Though Season 2 was a marked improvement, it was simply too
08:05little too late to right the sinking ship, and amid dwindling viewing figures, Iron Fist was cancelled
08:10barely a month after its second season was released. Basically, everyone could see the flop coming,
08:16save for Marvel Television who were knocked off their feet by Buck's pitch and seemingly overlooked his
08:22time driving Dexter into the ground.
08:244. Changing its time slot, Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles
08:29Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles was a strong ratings hit for Fox when it first premiered in
08:342008, though by the end of its second season, viewership had tumbled to consistently less than
08:39half of the first, prompting the network to cancel it. Yet anybody paying attention could see that
08:44Terminator wasn't cancelled due to a lack of quality, it was because Fox pulled another scheduling
08:49switcheroo which basically doomed it. Midway through Season 2, Fox randomly stopped airing the show for
08:55two entire months, and when it returned, it had been moved from a prime Monday evening slot to
09:00Friday evening, also known as the death slot due to the lack of viewership. Combined with the minimal
09:05marketing for the back end of the second season, it basically signaled that Fox had given up on the
09:10show, no matter that the series reception among both fans and critics actually improved throughout
09:15Season 2. If Fox had actually given Season 2 a fair shake, rather than making audiences work to figure
09:20out when it was airing, it might have actually fared well enough to stick around for a third.
09:243. Deviating from the source material, Resident Evil
09:28Sitting through Netflix's recent Resident Evil series was like observing a slow motion 8 episode
09:34car crash. Everybody watching knew that disaster was imminent while being powerless to do anything
09:39about it. Given the beloved survival horror IP, the TV series treatment made total sense on paper,
09:44as it allowed the creators to take their time adapting the games, something the movies had
09:48struggled with amid the confines of a mere 2 hours. But showrunner Andrew Dabb decided instead to splinter
09:54off and deliver a show that was effectively Resident Evil in name only. Beyond lifting a few basic ideas
09:59and characters, the bulk of the series could have been any random sci-fi horror show with recognizable
10:04branding slapped on it. Unsurprisingly, fans of the game were none too pleased, resulting in it
10:10receiving a brutal 26% audience rating and been cancelled roughly 6 weeks after its premiere.
10:16Sadly, Netflix and other streamers will probably take the wrong message away from this, that there
10:20isn't an audience appetite for Resident Evil when all they really want after so many poor live-action
10:26adaptations is one that's source-faithful and actually good.
10:302. Being set in the present day, Blockbuster
10:33On paper, a nostalgic sitcom centered around the halcyon days of Blockbuster video could have been an easy hit
10:39for Netflix, ironically the company who put them out of business, especially with the charming Randell
10:44Park and Melissa Fermero playing the leads. The problem? For reasons that will never truly be
10:49clear, the decision was made to set the show in the present day, focused on the employees of the
10:53last remaining Blockbuster store. But that isn't nearly as fun or interesting as a period sitcom set
10:59in the mid-90s, the height of Blockbuster's power, which could have easily exploited the growing
11:03audience nostalgia for that era. It was a slam dunk idea, because there are a few things more
11:09bankable in media than nostalgia, and yet by setting it in the present, Blockbuster ended
11:13up feeling like nothing more than a tired fourth-rate superstore knockoff. Barely a month after its
11:18release, Netflix announced Blockbuster's cancellation, confirming that audiences had
11:22soundly rejected it, and letting everybody joke that Netflix killed Blockbuster again.
11:281. Killing Danny 2 Early – Bloodline
11:31Thriller series Bloodline was a significant critical and ratings hit for Netflix in 2015,
11:36in large part due to Ben Mendelsohn's phenomenal performance as Danny Rayburn,
11:40the enigmatic black sheep of the Rayburn family. But in the first season's penultimate episode,
11:45Danny is killed by his brother John, Kyle Chandler, a shocking moment, albeit one in which robbed
11:51the series of its most compelling character and performance. Though Mendelsohn did reappear as Danny
11:56in flashbacks and visions throughout season 2, his physical absence in the ongoing story was brutal,
12:02and simply put, the show just wasn't nearly as interesting without his direct involvement.
12:08By the end of season 2, it felt like the show was spinning its dramatic wheels,
12:12no matter that the creators had mapped out a 5-6 season arc for the Rayburns.
12:16Evidently, the viewing figures declined enough that Netflix announced season 3 to be the show's last,
12:21and to make matters worse, it ended the initially fantastic drama on a majorly disappointing note.
12:27Danny dying might have worked at the end of season 2 or 3, once we'd been given more time to warm
12:32to the show's other characters, but taking the MVP character off the chessboard so soon was a fatal mistake.
12:39And as always, please do let us know in the comments section which are your favourite TV shows that were cancelled far too early.
12:46As a long time Buffy fan, I still think that Angel deserved a season 6, as much as I loved season 5,
12:52it still deserved an extra season, right?
12:54If you want to follow me on socials, I am at strong87 on Twitter and on Instagram, come and say hello to me on there.
13:00Thank you for watching everybody, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day, and until next time, take care.
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