We all have our favorite TV shows, and whether True Blood or Homeland, My Strange Addiction or Dancing With The Stars, the reality is that one day, our beloved escapes from reality will be cancelled (except for Law & Order, those are never going away). To postpone the sadness and withdrawals, devoted fans will frequently begin campaigns to save their favorite shows destined for demise. Some are successful and some aren’t, but what works?
Here are a few shows that have been saved from cancellation:
Roswell Star Trek
Family Guy Futurama
Jericho Cagney & Lacey
Friday Night Lights Designing Women
The keys to success in the saving of these shows were:
Letter Writing Campaigns
These are the bread and butter of any good attempt to revive a show on the chopping block. Shows like Star Trek (which, for the record, ended up starting a magnificent dynasty of four television spin-offs and 12 movies), Cagney and Lacey, and Designing Women (over 50,000 fans sent in letters to CBS), were all saved solely by snail mail. In this case (but not every one) more was definitely better.
Email/Social Campaigns
Today’s version of the letter writing campaign is much more integrated than days past. Online petitions, emails, and social media efforts have helped pull shows like Roswell, Jericho, and Friday Night Lights from cancellation.
Show Specific Gimmicks
These are examples of times when fans thought out of the box to save their beloved programs. They would take a well-known line or concept from the show and make it a reality for the show’s producers. The show Roswell had a character with a propensity for Tabasco sauce. Fans started a “Roswell is Hot!” campaign and sent over 3,000 bottles to network executives. The post-apocalyptic series Jericho had a memorable scene where a character yelled “Nuts!” Fans sent in more than 20 tons of peanuts to CBS to show they wanted Jericho kept on the air. Friday Night Lights did the same thing, only this time with light bulbs and eye drops (a motto on the show was Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose). This out of the box thinking using aspects of the show they were trying to save is a great tactic.
Money
As much as our shows entertain us, they are created largely to make money. Sometimes the dollar can speak louder than the email. For shows like Futurama and Family Guy, DVD sales of episodes and direct to DVD movies helped prompt revivals. Firefly (a personal favorite) didn’t get saved as a TV series, despite initially selling out their DVD sets as quickly as stores could stock them. It did get a final send off with the feature length film, Serenity, so there was a silver lining for fans. Another example of a cancelled show that will get a feature film for its last hurrah is Veronica Mars. In this case however, fans directly funded the venture on Kickstarter.
Other Venues
Just because one of the big networks doesn’t want a show anymore, doesn’t mean the show wouldn’t be a great fit on somewhere else. Netflix is a great example of this. Arrested Development was cancelled in 2006 but Netflix revived the series and created a fourth season.
The reality is, our shows will one day be cancelled. But using some of the above methods, there is the possibility that their lives can be extended.
What is your favorite cancelled TV show?
