Christopher Rush

I understand how usually we want our Christmas-themed issues to be light and fluffy like meringue cookies, but in addition to celebrating good times and Jesus’ birthday, at the end of a year we customarily look back on the lows as well as the highs of the year, taking inventory of what we gained and what we lost.  Before we proceed further, I should pause and admit this article has nothing to do with actual people and nothing to do with the year 2017 and thus nothing to do with genuine loss or sorrow, so you can relax.  This article is about characters that left television shows sooner than I wanted them to, either for real-life reasons such as contract disputes or new producers’ fancies, fake-life reasons such as ratings or storylines, or who knows what — and for the most part I don’t know the reasons involved here, so I won’t speculate or spend time arguing (much).  I understand kairotically this issue is a bit touchy, so to speak, but if it helps, without contradicting the previous sentence, I’m pretty sure none of the characters left these shows because the actors/actresses were fired for treating other real human being inappropriately, so you can relax about that as well.  Now that we are all relaxed, let’s begin.

Mark Brendanawicz, Parks and Recreation

You know those people who tell you, “Parks and Recreation is really good, you just have to get through the first season — it gets much better in season two”?  Turns out, they are correct.  Parks and Recreation has about as abysmal a first season as a show can have, but almost immediately it gets much better in season two.  I’m not saying it’s one of the best of all-time: it’s not terribly “safe” all the time, it does like to flaunt quite a bit of censored moments in a few episodes, and a fair number of its characters behave in ways shall we say contrary to Judeo-Christian values.  Despite that, and perhaps much of that was “necessary” to get the show made in the early 21^st century, it has a fair amount of what we can blandly and vaguely call “heart,” and usually by the end of each episode we are smiling and happy these group of characters are smiling and happy themselves, often because fairly decent morals have won out after all (despite what was intimated moments ago).

Many of you will then likely disagree with this entry, since this character exists only during the easily forgettable era of the show.  However, the character had good potential especially as the show started to stretch and realize its own potential away from filling in the hole.  Just like in Futurama, as the expanded universe started to grow and the occasional repeating guest characters brought the town of Pawnee to life, Mark Brendanawicz could have grown and performed different functions as well, given the chance.  I understand how his character was basically written into a corner having effectively burned all his bridges with Leslie and Ann, the two main female characters, but it could have been interesting to see how they all rebounded from rebounding off each other.  His last few scenes at the end of the second season are just painful, and his character deserved better.  He began as the solid, intelligent character upon which our main character, Leslie Knope, could safely reach her enthusiastic dreams for a better life for her town.  He should not have ended up as he did, never mentioned again during the final five seasons of the show, even if the actor, Paul Schneider, was happy to move on to better things in his own life.

Chano Amanguale, Barney Miller

Almost identically to Mark Brendanawicz, Chano Amanguale, played by Gregory Sierra, disappeared from the ol’ 1-2 (New York City Police Department Squad Room #12) at the end of the second season of Barney Miller with no warning or explanation.  At least he is mentioned a couple of times in the next few seasons and gets paid a brief tribute in the show’s finale (along with other former cast members).  Chano was a very interesting character in a show wholly driven by interesting characters.  While some may find the show’s intentional panoply of ethnic diversity (and the concomitant ethnic humor of the 1970s) somewhat dated, I find it hard to believe people even today would be offended by what the show does and how it does it.  And Chano Amanguale, as an intelligent Puerto Rican officer with skill, humor, and verve, brought some of the best moments to the show in its first two seasons.  Like the other roles in the show, Chano had more going for him than “he’s the Puerto Rican character.”  His bilinguality, for example, brought scenes and an authenticity to the interactions with New York City life in the early 1970s that was lacking after his character left (as great as the show was).

Chano also gave us some weight to the show that was, admittedly, picked up in smaller amounts by other characters and episodes here and there, especially by Ron Glass’s character Ron Harris, but he did it first, especially showing us the human emotional cost of being a police officer.  If you are familiar with the series, you are likely aware of the specific show to which I am referring, the final episode of season 1, “The Hero,” in which Chano has to shoot a bank robber and, though he saves lives, feels guilt and sorrow for taking another life.  Aside from this depth, he also provided an enthusiastic personality not really replaced after his departure.  Don’t get me wrong, the show was great without him but not because of the loss of his character.  It may have been another case of the actor wanting to branch out and avoid becoming stuck in an admittedly intentional ethnic rut, but the show was not the same without him, and considering how impressively fresh the entire show is despite having virtually one set location for its entire run, Chano’s character could have brought something engaging for at least a few more seasons.

Dr. Zack Addy, Bones

For a show that impressively managed to mismanage virtually everything about itself, one of its most impressive mismanagements was the character Zack Addy, portrayed by Eric Millegan.  Depending on much you like that show, you could have chosen from several characters that just disappeared or were fired or got killed.  For no particular reason other than my whims and fancies at the time of this list compilation, I tried to avoid characters that got killed off by a show, which thus excluded pretty much everyone from Lost or NCIS or Battlestar Galactica.  I will admit here I have not finished off Bones — we stopped subscribing to cable somewhere around season eight or nine, so I haven’t seen the last few seasons.  I use the “stopped getting cable” excuse instead of the more accurate “they had run out of ideas for their characters and were just doing stupid things” (such as the totally original “Bones is on the run from a murder charge she didn’t commit” plotline) to try to be nice if you really like the show.  As I said, the show could go down for me as one of the great disappointments because it started off with so much and did so little with it.  Perhaps the last few seasons got back on track, and some day I’d like to find out for myself, but for the sake of this segment, I thought I’d be honest.

Zack was a young, brilliant doctor person with very limited social skills.  In a show populated mostly by nonstop talkers, his taciturnity was often quite welcome.  Many of the characters early on represented different abstract values: Booth was Justice (with a disappointingly insincere patina of Catholicism), Bones was Scientific Fact/Rationality, Angela was Heart/Compassion (right?), Hodgins was … I dunno, Proletariat Morality or something, except for the fact he was secretly wealthy, and Zack was Logic — cold, calculating, unemotional logic, sort of like how young Spock must have been when his mother wasn’t around.  And this logic led him to very bizarre places, especially at the end of his character tenure.

Zack leaves when he has reached a new plateau of both self-understanding and adherence to ratiocination, which is a horrible place for his character to stop.  Finally he starts to feel and engage with human beings as human beings and not just bits of datum, and even worse he departs when most of the rest of the characters think he is guilty of some heinous act when he is, plot twist, innocent.  And while we can be somewhat grateful this is finally resolved in the series finale almost a decade later (so I hear), taking a character to a whole new place and just dumping him, especially while leaving the other characters erroneously hurt by/angry with him, is a rotten thing to do for the character and the audience that has journeyed with him.

Walt, Lost

(I did say “pretty much everyone” from Lost.)  We kid Lost for doing about a dozen or so times exactly what Bones did with Zack, though usually much more fatally: whenever a character comes to some important life-changing decision or realization, about four seconds later that character is killed off.  Fine.  If you’ll allow the expression, we can live with that.  I’ve gone on record before (and I’m not trying to be one of those “go read everything else I’ve written” authors here) as saying Lost is a good show and its ending is fully in-line with what the show was about from its beginning, even with the multitude of plot holes, character-arc abandonments, nonsensical explanations or lack thereof, and the total package that was the entertaining rollercoaster ride called Lost, driven much more by the creativity and skills of Cuse and Lindelof than Abrams.  I felt the show did a fine job drawing its main storylines to satisfactory conclusions, for the most part, and while we could all come up with a separate list of a dozen characters who left the show too soon because they were killed off (which would be most of the cast), I arbitrarily tried to stay away from such cases.

Walt, however, is another situation entirely.  I have no sympathy for show creators who put children into their programs, first of all.  Let’s face it: Opie was sweet and swell and Ron Howard is great, but the Opie-centric episodes of The Andy Griffith Show are among the worst of the series.  The early “Nog + Jake getting in trouble” episodes of DS9, likewise.  The shows that are mainly family shows because of the kids (Leave it to Beaver, The Brady Bunch, etc.) don’t really count here, since that is their whole schtick: the kids try and fail and try and succeed and we all laugh and cry and laugh again as they grow and learn to laugh at love … again, or whatever.  The Cosby Show avoided this for the most part, though there are a couple episodes here and there that suffer from this (like Rudy and Vanessa locked in the basement).  But by this point in the history of television, Lost and its creators should have known Malcolm David Kelley was going to reach puberty and grow quickly as a human being before his character had time to grow and develop.  They should have known that.  And if you are going to create a show that covers only a few months of “show time” though it takes years of “real time” to make, you should be prepared for that eventuality from the get-go.

Walt was special, they told us.  Mysterious and wondrous things happened around him, possibly because of him.  He had some keen preternatural connection to the island.  For all we know, he may have been the reason they crashed on the island in the first place.  But we will never really know, will we?  In a show that literally was about time travel, they couldn’t have found some excuse to say something to the effect of “Walt stepped into the quantum accelerator and suddenly older, taller Walt stepped out”?  We should have been told why Walt was special.  I don’t need an explicit explication of why the island breeds infertility (which, I suppose is a redundant and contradictory sentence).  I don’t need to know what was the deal with Libby and her boat and this and that.  Sure, it would be nice, but Walt was special!  He altered reality.  His story and character deserved much better treatment.

Murphy Michaels and Bernice Foxe, Remington Steele

I’m not implying I don’t like Doris Roberts or her character Mildred Krebs — she is great, of course — but Remington Steele lured us in with an intriguing conflict that had no meaningful resolution.  Remington Stele began with a fantastic ’80s-only premise: a plucky detective agency is making its mark in the misogynistic world thanks to the masculine manly man Remington Steele being in charge … except he doesn’t exist and the real brains behind the enterprise is Laura Holt, a feminine lady woman person, who actually has brains as well as beauty, a concept not everyone in the 1980s (or 2010s) understood.  Laura Holt has some assistants: Murphy Michaels played by James Read and Bernice Foxe played by Janet DeMay.  Murphy is another licensed private investigator and is a fairly smart cookie in his own right, not just the muscle for Laura.  Bernice is a disappointingly typical ’80s secretary, and, frankly, I’m sort of tossing her in for appearances, thus undercutting the enlightened-sounding nature of recent sentences.  Mainly, this entry is about Murphy Michaels.

The aforementioned “intriguing conflict” at the onset of the series comes from the appearance of the breathtaking Pierce Brosnan, who immediately announces to the world he is the real Remington Steele, surprising everyone who works at the Remington Steele Detective Agency, especially Laura and Murphy, who both know Laura made him up (Bernice does not know this, which adds some humorous moments during the first season, but the loss of her character is not much of a loss overall, sad to say).

Pierce’s character is mysterious and possibly felonious.  Murphy, of course, mistrusts him from the beginning.  So does Laura, but she also finds him difficult to resist (as we all do, frankly, and still to this day), a conflict that is allowed to expand and contract and expand again over the next few seasons.  Sadly, we only get the intriguing conflict of Murphy vs. “Remington” for the first season, after which Murphy and Bernice are replaced by Mildred Krebs.  True, this simplifies the show and allows it to grow in new directions, but I still would have liked to have seen an actual resolution to the Murphy vs. Remington arc, as well as more interesting things for James Read during his time as Murphy Michaels, especially since he is supposed to be good at his job — he should not always be topped by the amateur.  I’m not suggesting a prequel, although that notion now that I think of it is mildly intriguing.  Nor am I suggesting in this instance the show could have been better had Murphy stayed around longer.  One season, had it been handled better and more intentionally, could have sufficed for an engaging and complete story for Murphy Michaels both in relation to Remington Steele and in his own right.

Lt. Col. Henry Blake and Dr. Trapper John McIntyre, M*A*S*H

Moments ago I mentioned I tried not to pick characters that got killed off, which is why I didn’t pick Tasha Yar from Star Trek: The Next Generation (which was as nonsensical a decision as an actor could make, leaving a show midway in its first season — at least Christopher Eccleston sticks out the whole season) or Jadzia Dax from Deep Space Nine (though, why she couldn’t have stayed for one more season is beyond me), or anyone from Farscape or NCIS or 24 or other shows that solve their problems by killing off characters (not that Farscape did that).  Similarly, it would have been wistfully childish or childishly wistful to include characters that leave a show because the actor who portrays that role dies in real life, such as Bill McNeal from Newsradio or Coach from Cheers or Nick Yemana from Barney Miller or even Mr. Hooper from Sesame Street.  Sure, it would have been nice if they had lived, but more so that their families could have them around than more episodes of fake television.  (I still feel bad my first reaction in late 2016 when hearing of the passing of Carrie Fisher was, “oh no, what about Episode 9?”)

Even so, you may think I am now cheating my own arbitrary selection standards by picking Henry Blake from M*A*S*H.  However, if you take the whole M*A*S*H experience together (by which I mean the book series, including those not by Richard Hooker or whatever his real name was), sprinkle in a possibly-canonical moment from The Carol Burnett Show, and you come to know Henry Blake was not killed after all.  This still does not lessen the impact of his final episode in the series for me, and I still will only watch it when we do whole-series run-throughs every few years.  Most of you will disagree with me, and that’s fine.

The point remains: Henry should have stuck around longer.  Again, that does not mean I don’t like Col. Potter or think Henry is “better” than Col. Potter.  Similarly, I’m not saying Trapper is “better” than B.J.  M*A*S*H did a fantastic job replacing characters with almost exact opposite personalities, which was brilliant for the life of the show and the wellbeing of the fans and their affections.  Admittedly, part of the reason I like Henry and Trapper is because I like the comedic nature of their era so much.  Most of my favorite M*A*S*H episodes come from their era because they are so funny, and still so after countless watchings.  That’s not a knock against the Potter/Hunnicutt/Winchester era — I am still impressed by what they did during the more dramatic tenor in the latter seasons, especially as the creative team intentionally did episodes similar in plotlines to early series episodes but instead of dealing with the ideas comically, they dealt with them seriously, focusing on more realistic implications and consequences.  That is great, and though I don’t dwell as much in seasons seven through eleven as I do one through six, I still enjoy those episodes.  Still and all, though, the early comedic era is what I prefer.

This is not to say my fondness for Henry and Trapper is solely dependent upon the tenor of their tenure: quite the contrary, in fact.  I think the best moments Henry has, for example, are those rare opportunities when McLean Stevenson gets to play him seriously and intelligently, such as when Henry tells Hawkeye the two rules he knows in “Sometimes You Hear the Bullet” or the strong leadership he exhibits briefly in scattered moments such as “Divided We Stand” and “O.R.” and “Aid Station.”  “Life with Father” is an almost-perfect Henry episode except for his brief outburst after his phone call to his wife.  Many of his best moments are in season three, indeed, and sadly, just as his character was finally getting some growth and development, he’s gone.

Similar is Trapper John McIntyre.  His best moments are in season three, and just when we are starting to see him get some much-deserved life and screen time, he’s gone.  Trapper shines in episodes such as “Kim,” “Check-up,” “Bulletin Board,” and “Radar’s Report.”  (Couple of season two episodes, come to think of it — why didn’t they build on that?)  I can understand why Wayne Rogers and McLean Stevenson would want to leave, especially Wayne Rogers: if you are promised you are going to co-star in a show about two main doctors and suddenly you are not just second fiddle but oftentimes more the page turner, and if you can make a lot more money as a financial investment expert without having to act in the difficult conditions on set during the making of the series, yeah, I would probably do what he did as well.  And I can empathize with McLean Stevenson also: if my character was not getting the chance to grow and behave intelligently enough, and I had the opportunity to move from third fiddle to star of my own show, I’d probably consider taking off for potentially greener pastures just as he did.

However, as a fan of the show, and a fan of those characters, I wish they had either stuck around longer to give us more episodes building upon their growth and development as rounded personalities, or at least gotten some better scenes.  At least Trapper could have had some more of the funny lines instead of Hawkeye all the time.   Though, if you ask me which episodes I’d change, I couldn’t really name them offhand.  I’d have to assess that on an episode-by-episode basis, which I will do for my forthcoming M*A*S*H book.

Speaking of which, as a bit of a related aside, I have often thought how different the show would have been had the main group of nurses featured throughout the first season stayed at the camp.  I understand there’s an element of realism in their departure, since M*A*S*H units tended to have much faster personnel turnover rates than the fictional 4077^th did, and from a similar “hungry for fame” reason I can understand why Marcia Strassman would want to branch out.  And as above, I do not mean to imply I don’t like Bigelow or Kellye or Gage or Sheila or Baker or Jo Ann or Wilson — certainly not.  I have already intimated I really enjoy series that keep their extended universe of characters around and let them grow and thrive along with the main cast.  And while Hawkeye and the producers basically cut all ties with the first season nursing staff in “Ceasefire,” imagine how different the show would have been had Ginger, Nancy, Margie Cutler, Barbara, Dish, and Leslie stuck around for a while, preferably adding in the other nurses as well, possibly alternating episodes as different shifts much like the doctors did.  Again, I understand how that would have fundamentally changed the show, and I can’t really point to a lot of episodes specifically and declare “this would have been better with this group of nurses instead” … except for one.  As great as “The Nurses” is, had it been nurses we already knew, perhaps building that tension up over the season, man, that could have been even better — and you wouldn’t have needed to change one of Margaret’s great lines.  But I digress.  I’ll put it in my book.  This was supposed to be about Henry and Trapper.

The real heartbreak for me about Trapper and Henry, beyond the eternal wistful desire for more/better episodes for them, is the fact the show actually did this kind of character development from the beginning for Col. Potter and B.J.  With the notable exception of the episode “Hawkeye” (and discrete others, to be sure), season four to the end significantly backed away from Hawkeye’s character as the main character and allowed others to dominate episodes.  Sure, a good deal of this was Alan Alda doing more behind-the-scenes work, but if he was going to do that anyway, why couldn’t it have happened while enabling Henry and Trapper to grow?  Ah, well.  Again, I’m glad it happened so Col. Potter and B.J. could grow and thrive, truly I am.  I just think Henry and Trapper left the show too soon.

C’est la tee-vee.

I’m sure you have a drastically different list of characters and shows from which their departures were too soon.  I would have also appreciated Farrah Forke sticking around Wings longer, for example, or Thomas Hayden Church for that matter.  Or Monk’s first-season theme song.  I’d be glad to hear from you about other characters in other shows that may have benefitted from more episodes or at least better utilization of them while they were around.  That was basically Khandi Alexander’s reason for leaving Newsradio (as well as her character’s reason for leaving), and it’s difficult to disagree with her.  I did not include her here because I thought we had a good run with her character anyway, though I would not have minded more Catherine Duke around station WNYX.  Tell me some others, preferably from shows I’ve never seen — as difficult as it is to believe, I haven’t seen them all.

At this point, my idea for the next entry in this series is a bit of a twist, something like “not a moment too soon: characters that should have left earlier,” if I can find some way of doing it without sounding mean-spirited.  While that sounds like a total break from what the series is about, it’s my series and I can do what I want with it.  Not to sound mean-spirited.  Just let me grow and develop, unlike the characters discussed above.

Christopher Rush

Welcome to part 1 of a non-committally “multi-part” series exploring a few television-related topics.  As we all know, in today’s break-neck-speed world of ratings, advertisements, and politically-correct-only viewpoints, sometimes shows get axed before they get a chance to shine.  Sometimes, this is a good thing.  I don’t watch a lot of contemporary programming, but I’ve seen a few halftime advertisements for programs that have made me (and surely us all) reflect “that won’t last,” and rightfully it doesn’t.  The other times, though, the decisions of powerful, nameless, soulless executives are just plain wrong: shows with great premises and engaging potential are ripped from our bosoms too soon and dashed upon the rocks of Impatience and Pecuniary Gluttony before our tear-sodden eyes.  I would like to reflect now upon a few of these shows that left us far too prematurely, either during their first season or only after one season (in mostly no particular order).

Honorable Mention: Firefly

I know, I know.  “Only honorable mention?!” you say.  “That’s the worst and/or best example of this problem!” you say.  Such have the people been saying for 15 years, including the other 75% of my birth family.  To be honest with you, loyal readers, I never watched Firefly until a few months ago, fifteen years “late.”  My family had even purchased the digital video discs of the series when it came out, which I have been carrying around for over a decade across three changes of address.  Finally, though, I popped them in and watched the series.  You know, it’s not too shabby after all.  It is a very rich universe with a great deal of potential, interesting conflicts and backstory, and a ragtag crew of disparate desperados, all led by the least-likable character on the show, Malcolm Reynolds, played by the least likable actor on the show, Nathan Fillion.  That his character is openly antagonistic toward religion is only icing on the cake.  I could never watch Castle, either.  I’m just not a Fillion-atic.  It breaks my heart he is portraying one of my favorite Marvel characters, Simon Williams (a.k.a. Wonder Man) in the upcoming Guardian of the Galaxy sequel (though, since they aren’t the real Guardians of the Galaxy, and the Ultimates Universe is mostly shash, it doesn’t matter).  Anyway, the series and the universe, despite Malcolm Reynolds, are intriguing.  The “everyone speaks Chinese” thing seemed farfetched for the not-too-distant future, but I suppose if some catastrophic event results in the West and China uniting, I could see it happening, sure.  The thing that bothered me the most about the show is the best character, Kaylee, is treated horribly by practically everyone, including the writers/producers.  No one appreciated or talked to her appropriately, and the backstory and occasional dialogue by and from her from the lesser-skilled writers was really a low point.  On the other hand, as I said, the interesting universe and its many layers of conflicts, especially the absence of aliens, the sci-fi/Western milieu, the odd mix of moral codes in the crew and universe as a whole, plus the “who are they really?” about most of the crew all indeed make for a good time and an experience that should have lasted much longer than it did.  I agree.  It’s not the bee’s knees, but it is a good idea.  It certainly could be easily expanded by books and cartoons and comics and a whole slew of things, but if mastermind Joss Whedon wants to keep it all locked up in his secret vault where only he can take it out and pet it and hug and kiss it, so be it.

12. Ellery Queen

This may be the least-painful entry on the list, not because it is first but because the safety net is indeed the largest: even though the fantastic 1975-1976 television show Ellery Queen lasted for only one season, the only entry on this list I wasn’t alive to see the first time around, the entire Ellery Queen Universe consists of, what, a couple of radio series, a couple of television series, some films, comics, a magazine that’s been going on since World War 2, and a whole lot of novels and short stories.  This may be of small comfort (as it is with the heart-breakingly-too-soon-cancelled Nero Wolfe series), if your main attraction to the Ellery Queen series is the performance of Timothy Hutton’s dad Jim Hutton and David Wayne as Ellery Queen’s father Richard Queen.  Much like the interplay of Timothy Hutton and Maury Chaykin in Nero Wolfe, the highlight of the show is the two leads acting with each other.  The mysteries are usually interesting, sure, and the semi-regular guest appearance of John Hillerman as Simon Brimmer (created just for this incarnation of Ellery Queen) is marvelous (especially as it adds to this series’ more comical-but-not-slapstick interpretation of Ellery Queen), and the “hey, it’s that one used-to-be-famous guy and gal!” seven times over per episode guest cast (like Murder, She Wrote used a decade later) is delightful for fans of television-radio-movie history.  But the real treat, as I said, was the chemistry between Jim Hutton and David Wayne, and we, frankly, deserved several more seasons of it than just one.  The stories already existed.  The Used-To-Be Actors and Actresses were aplenty.  It could have lasted.

11. 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo

Surely, several one-season-only fine cartoon shows could qualify for consideration here, especially if made by Hanna-Barbera: Herculoids, Hong Kong Phooey, Hair Bear Bunch (and others that doesn’t start with “h”).  Pirates of Dark Water, for example, was the impetus for this article, but since it technically is more than one season, it ironically does not qualify (and deserves its own article for its sheer greatness anyway — stay tuned).  13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo only qualifies for this list because, while it may have been complete as a one-season show, it did not get its chance to finish the story, which is horrible.  As you know, I’m not a huge fan of scary things, but this show, a few notches above the usual dark mystery of Scooby-Doo shows that almost always say “supernatural dangers have naturalistic explanations,” is distinctly in the vein of “supernatural dangers are supernatural indeed” and works very well, even though it should be a prime example of everything we harangued against a few issues ago (sixteen ago, to be precise).  With Vincent Price along, Scooby and Shaggy and Velma and some kid named Flim Flam put right what once went wrong (you can probably guess who’s to blame) in the harried nether realms of the Himalayas.  All we needed was a few more episodes and it would have been all finished — why cancel a show three or four (or possibly even only 2 very full) episodes before it could finish telling its story?

10. Push, Nevada

This rather bizarre gimmick of a show mixed iceberg-like mystery (there’s much more under the surface) with play-at-home game show.  This one’s definitely not for kids: it’s possible the inhabitants of Twin Peaks, Washington would feel uneased in this goofy ol’ town.  A mysterious fax (I think that’s Old Tongue for “printed out e-mail”?) shows up in mild-mannered IRS Agent Jim Prufrock’s office and right away you’re thinking “hey, that’s a name from that poem” and suddenly things get weird.  But not only is it a show about a mystery and bizarre things going on in Push, Nevada (things of Modernist Poetry and Classical Greek Drama subject matter, which can never be good for anyone involved), it is also a play-along-at-home follow-the-clues adventure.  This gimmick (and I don’t use that pejoratively here) was pretty clever — not original, not unique, but clever.  The show had a self-determined end point: it had a whole mystery to uncover and reveal, an end and purpose, but that was apparently not good enough for the impetuous Decision Makers and Plug Pullers of 2002.  Oh, sure, they revealed the rest of the clues for the play-at-home game show, and some eagle-eyed viewer won a thousand bajillion dollars, but for me that was not the point of the show.  I wanted to know where the show was going, and I didn’t care too much about the prize money.  Apparently, I was alone.  Not even co-creator Ben Affleck seems to have anything to say about the show part, such as where the mystery was going.  Pity, that.  I still want to know what was supposed to happen.

9. Police Squad!

I admit this is the one show on the list for which I was alive but not old enough to watch when it first came out, which is partly why the list is limited in its way, but having seen the episodes multiple times, I still cannot fathom why this series is only six episodes long.  Sure, it has running gags, but those running gags do not prevent anyone from understanding 99.9% of that particular episode.  Surely its appeal to me is its alignment with the kind of verbal, intelligent humor I prefer, but its admixture of nonsensical visual gags is somehow over-the-top without being too much or too obvious.  It is a sort of intelligent slapstick that does not resort to the painful Three’s Company-type “humor” (no offense to Three’s Company fans).  It must be the only series to be longer (total minutes-wise) in its motion picture incarnation than in its episodic television incarnation.  As Barney Miller proved, a humorous cop show has great potential and longevity — and Barney Miller almost never left the squad room in eight seasons!  This series had so many positive things going for it.  It was just too smart for its time, apparently.  For those who have trouble associating “smart” with Naked Gun, go back to the original Police Squad! and see what comedy gold was there from the beginning.

8. Space Rangers

Another but six-episode series, this science-fiction romp likewise had great potential.  It has not aged nearly as well as Police Squad!, that is true, even though it is a decade younger, and it has clearly been surpassed by others of its ilk (obviously Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5), but Space Rangers had a certain I-don’t-know-what. Perhaps it tried too hard: the production demands with a technology that wasn’t quite there yet, the terminology of the universe, the outfits … but still.  Its main cast is a veritable “hey, it’s that one guy/gal!” collection.  It’s about the space station and dangers of the frontier and enemies close to home, but it’s also a world that isn’t nearly so refined as either the Star Trek or even Babylon 5 universes, and that ruggedness had a wide-open field for storytelling and character development.  This show should either never have been made or allowed to go for many seasons.

7. Covington Cross

The 1992-’93 television season was an interesting time.  Some excellent shows began then: Batman: The Animated Series, X-Men, Highlander: The Series, Goof Troop, among others.  Some not great shows began then (let’s not mention any).  And there was #8 on our list as well as #7, Covington Cross.  Speaking of “hey, it’s that one guy/gal!” shows, this is Britain’s version, with famous British people, starring the great Nigel Terry.  With the freedom of Generic Medieval Setting, Covington Cross had no historical boundaries or chronological limitations requiring it do this or not do that other than Be Medieval.  With Nigel Terry.  Unlike all the Serious Time Dramas with Some Comedy, Covington Cross did not have a set story it had to tell: it could just be something fun and different and clever, and boy was it clever.  Go read the plot description of the pilot episode and most of you will think “oh, that’s like that other popular medieval drama that’s all the rage these days,” but then you’ll see the date and realize, “oh, that’s four years before the first book came out!”  Like Police Squad!, Covington Cross was just ahead of its time — too good, too clever, too expensive.  Ironically, the thing that seemed to irk Thomas Paine so much, about England ruining America (or whatever he called it) because England was running America from afar seems to be the inverse of this show: America ruining England’s Covington Cross because American ran England’s Covington Cross from afar.  This was a good show, and if I could understand that before my teens, surely other people could have understood that as well.  Did I mention it had Nigel Terry?

6. Dark Skies

Similar to and unlike what we just said, Dark Skies took on the challenge of telling the story of modern America from a different perspective: the right one, in which so many of the major events of modern America happened because of … aliens.  I’m not a huge fan of alternative history, but Dark Skies was a good mix of history and revision and scary alien menace.  Perhaps you think I’m describing some X-Files knock-off.  No, you’re thinking of X-Files seasons 9 and 10.  But seriously folks, Dark Skies should not be remembered as an X-Files knock-off.  It had some similar ideas, sure, but unlike X-Files, which was all some secret malarkey that changed every couple of seasons and our heroes were never to know about it, in Dark Skies our heroes get on the inside track from the very first episode and spend the whole time trying to learn more about it and get better prepared to actually fight it.  It’s like a sensible fan’s response to what we wanted to see in X-Files: the good guys actually being allowed to fight the future.  If this got cancelled because it was “too much like X-Files,” whoever made that decision clearly did not understand either X-Files or Dark Skies.  Recently, I saw a soupçon of the five-year plan for this show: twenty years after the show came and went too soon, I was re-angered by the idiocy of the Decision Makers who cancelled this show, knowing as they did what was in store for this show and what incredibly intelligent places it was going (significantly different from how it began in season one).  It was going to grow and change and re-invent itself and do all the things J.J. Abrams’s shows get credit for inventing a half a decade before Felicity.  Dark Skies took one of the clever-but-not-even-original ideas X-Files presented in a horribly frustrating way and did it in a more engaging and rewarding way, took what Falling Skies was going to do 15 years later and did it 15 years before, and a whole lot more.  It was going to be five seasons; it knew where it was going; it knew the story it had to tell.  What went wrong?  Where was the faith?  Where was the love?

5. Crusade

Speaking of 5-year plans, we should know by now if a show has a solid five-year plan and is allowed to work it to its fruition, we end up with something magical and exquisite.  Clearly, as always, I’m speaking of Babylon 5.  Farscape may or may not have had a five-year plan, but it needed its fifth season to finish telling its story fully, but, sadly, it didn’t get it.  NewsRadio as well.  Battlestar Galactica may or may not have had a plan, but it got to finish telling the story it wanted to tell, and those of us who are intelligent appreciated and enjoyed the conclusion to the story.  And then: sequel.  And/or: prequel.

I haven’t seen Caprica.  I probably won’t.  Ah, but Crusade!  Why was this cancelled?  If you are a sequel to the greatest show of all time, which, as we all know, Babylon 5 is, why would Decision Makers not give the Creative Team the benefit of the should-not-even-have-existed doubts and say “you just made us forever rich and famous and happy by giving us the best show ever, and since you want to continue the story/universe in a new and fresh way and actually know what you want to do and where you want to go, full speed ahead!” and instead say “you just et cetera et cetera et cetera too slow, I change my mind, it’s over before we can get to know everyone”?  Why would you (the third of the three different unnamed antecedents of “you” in the previous sentence) do such a ludicrous thing?  Have you (I’m talking to you, now, faithful reader) seen the cast list for this show?  This show discovered everyone!  (You’re probably thinking that argument will be used again soon in this list.)  I don’t understand.  No, Crusade is not Farscape — but even the first couple of post-pilot episodes of Farscape are “not Farscape” just yet anyway. Even that show had to find its identity.  And after Babylon 5, come on.  Crusade knew where it was going, and the Creative Team already proved it knew what it was doing.  This is possibly the most irksome entry on the list for me, since I know deeply it could have become something great given the opportunity, even with the monumental task of being a sequel of sorts to the greatest show of all time.

4. Mr. and Mrs. Murder

This is the most recently enjoyed series by me on the list, one my parents introduced to my wife and me earlier this year.  Coming to us from Australia, reminding you we at Redeeming Pandora are truly international, Mr. and Mrs. Murder was and is and always will be a very clever character-driven mystery show about a loving husband and wife couple (rather rare on television these days) who clean up crime scenes for a living.  Not like the CSI clean up teams, mind you, the actual cleaning up cleaning up people: the ones with mops, vacuums, wet wipes, and lots and lots of gloves.  Like most good mystery shows, the characters are very smart (another rare thing on television these days), well-read, well-rounded, somewhat flawed, quirky, very much in love, and very fun to watch.  Because the show comes to us from Australia, none of the American Television Company mantras and flaws are there (whether traditional or contemporary), and so even though it seems from afar to be overly-familiar-television-mystery fare, it uses those traditional mystery show tropes in fresh and clever ways.  It’s quite good.  Making the pain of its premature non-renewal even more painful, aside from how clever and enjoyable the show was right from its first episode, by the end of the season it had potentially given us a nemesis for our hero, Charlie (the “Mr.” of the title — the loving couple of cleaners-turned-amateur-sleuths).  And while shows like Bones and NCIS have proven the “nemesis of the season” idea can get tedious rather quickly, at least they had the opportunity to work it through.  This is a quintessential example of the “not enough viewers gets even very clever shows cancelled” heartbreaking disease so prominent today.  This show could have and should have gone on for quite some time.  Come on, Australia — what happened here?

3. Earth 2

For some inexplicable reason, Television Executives, those unimaginative soulless fiends to which we’ve been referring throughout this journey, continue to “green light” (as they say in the “biz”) science-fiction programs, even though these same Decision Makers apparently hate them passionately.  Travel back with me to the Golden Age of TV Sci-Fi, the late ’80s to the early ’00s, a time that gave us really great shows like TNG, DS9, Babylon 5, Farscape, Lexx, Quantum Leap, Stargate SG-1, and others.  We also had this overlooked gem.  Before Voyager, Lost, Terra Nova, and all the other more recent series that copied some of this potential great show (that, admittedly, borrowed from Battlestar Galactica, which is just the Aeneid in space anyway), Earth 2 gave us a diverse, intelligent show that fell prey to the Low Ratings Disease.  Shame on you, audiences: we had something potentially great in our hands and you (not me, since I watched it all) let it slip away.  This show had a little bit of just about everything you need for a good science fiction show: a ragtag crew far from home, religious conflicts, misunderstood aliens, cyborgs, disasters, internal strife, children as the last hope for humanity, and so much more.  Sure, when I put it like that it may sound like a hodgepodge of every science fiction show, but somehow it came across (to me, and not just because I was young) as something different, something that could have lasted much longer than one season.  There was great potential for so much, not just on the new planet but also back home — this could have given us many seasons of intrigue, mystery, action, adventure, romance, science, ecology, anti-colonialism, and so much more.  I guarantee if this show got rebooted intelligently today (by which I mean not in a heavy-handed “social issues are more important than people of faith” sort of way), it could work very well and perhaps tell its whole story, which surely would be an enjoyable story indeed.

2. The Good Guys

Clearly we live in a day in Television Land  in which “fresh, clever, morally upright ideas” are anathema, and “shoddily-rehashed superhero ideas” and “viscerally-appealing basest aspects of humanity are ‘good’” shows are praised and “green-lighted.”  Again.  And again.  And again.  It’s an odd mix, perhaps trying to tell us “normal people are bad but hey, that’s okay,” so “only supernatural beings are good, and since the supernatural is a hollow lie, no good exists for real.”  Inexplicably to intelligent people, the other people in this world tell us shows like Breaking Bad, Damages, Guilt, Scandal, Revenge, Dirt, Dexter, The Sopranos, Desperate Housewives, and a whole slew of other shows focusing on protagonists doing horribly evil things are “great” and “groundbreaking” and other sorts of positive superlatives, and these same people then ask in all sincerity, “why are human beings so bad and hateful and angry and selfish all the time?”  These are the same people, mind you, who tell us “people are cosmic accidents from dust and monkeys with no purpose or hope” and then, still in all sincerity wonder “why do people kill and hate and lie and steal and destroy?”  Then they usually mention the calendar year, as if that has some bearing on the argument.

Enter (six years ago at the time of this writing), a very fresh and entertaining (if somewhat saucy at times) relief from such a world: a show in which the heroes care about doing good, making the world a better place, and keeping us safe from people who want us to be unsafe.  The show was a frenetic mix of a lot of different things: you’ve got the beloved ’80s mismatched cop duo idea (one cop is stuck in the ’70s days of shoot first, massage the evidence, drive fast, smoke and drink and be foxy, and, if time, ask questions if it’s not too late but since your intuition is usually right you don’t need to ask questions anyway sort of cop, combined with the young, up-and-coming technology savvy, politically astute, by-the-book cop), an ethnic lady of ethnicity in charge of the police force that should have appeased the group that needs appeasing by that sort of thing, heroes with lots of flaws and moral ambiguity, a quirky cast of characters beyond the quirky heroes, and the villains!  My heavens, the villains are possibly the second most enjoyable part of the show, in that week after week the villains are, well, sort of the opposite of stereotypical villains: they are intelligent, funny, and come very close to being the stars of the episode (sort of reminiscent of Barney Miller), yet we don’t end up rooting for them in any way (except for villain-turned-ally Julius).  Bradley Whitford as Dan Stark, the out-of-time cop who, like me, distrusts technology and proper procedure (after all, didn’t we learn from thousands of episodes of Law and Order and CSI and Psych warrants usually are just for sissies after all?) is so unlike every other role we’ve ever seen him in, the sheer zest and enjoyment of watching him be funny and free and wild and reckless should have been enough of a reason to keep this show around for several seasons.  Plus it’s got wit (akin to Police Squad!, in a way), Colin Hanks, romance, special effects, and I honestly don’t know why this show stopped … oh, wait, yes I do.  It was good.

1. The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.

Here we are, full circle.  You know who made Lost the good show it was?  Nope, not J.J. Abrams — Carlton Cuse, that’s who.  Where did he get his training?  Brisco County, Jr., that’s where.  I think it was Benjamin Franklin who said, and I quote, “The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. may not be a perfect show, but it’s as close to a perfect show as imperfect people can make,” unquote.  Before Firefly came along with its Western Sci-Fi Comedy Adventure (that at times takes itself a bit too seriously), there was the great Brisco County, Jr.: a Western Sci-Fi Comedy Adventure that never took itself too seriously.  Before Nathan Fillion came along being pseudo-manly and pseudo-complicated heroic, there was … Bruce Campbell.  Manly.  Heroic.  And manly.  I don’t want to get all libelous and whatnot, but Bruce Campbell, for me, is the antithesis of Nathan Fillion, mainly in the “I want to watch a show with him as the star” category.

Let’s talk briefly about how many fantastic things this show had going for it: I believe we have already mentioned Bruce Campbell as the eponymous Brisco County, Jr., Harvard educated son of the West’s most famous and successful lawman (Brisco County, Sr.) bounty hunter (who, MacGyver-like, almost never uses violence) extraordinaire.  Do you want more?  We have already mentioned Western Sci-Fi Comedy Adventure.  How about the late great Julius Carry as Brisco’s rival-bounty-hunter-turned-best-friend Lord Bowler?  Christian Clemenson as Socrates Poole, lawyer and confidante.  Kelly Rutherford as Dixie Cousins, gangster moll/sort of love interest for Brisco.  Comet the Wonder Horse as himself.  Every episode lovingly recalls us to those halcyon days of serials, much like the Indiana Jones movies, in which plots moved quickly from crisis to crisis, but BCJ allowed for plenty of character, humor, intrigue, romance, heart, intelligence, and more good things.  Let’s not forget John Astin as Professor Wickwire, the knowingly anachronistic scientist always encouraging Brisco (and us, the science-loving audience) to be on the lookout for The Next Big Thing.  (Before you think it’s just some Wild Wild West rip-off, trust me when I say “it isn’t.”)  And the villains!  Billy Drago as main antagonist John Bly (no one does villain like Billy Drago).  M.C. Gainey as Big Smith (a diabolical Little John).  Oh, and you know that rousing theme you hear all the time during the Olympics, not the fanfare but the other rousing get-up-and-go-with-gusto music?  Yeah, that’s actually the theme music to Brisco County, Jr.

Having established this show has practically everything you need for success (i.e., Bruce Campbell with bonus elements), let’s talk a little about its premise, especially if you think John Astin’s inventor-scientist character is the sum total of the Sci-Fi in Western Sci-Fi.  U.S. Marshall Brisco County, Sr. has just successfully rounded up all 12 of the notorious John Bly gang, but for some reason the Robber Barons and Government Decision Makers have put them all on the same train together, and somehow the bad guys escape, kill Brisco County, Sr., and flee in all directions.  The Robber Barons hire his bounty hunter son Brisco County, Jr. (and a few others, such as Lord Bowler), to track them down and restore order to the West.  And that’s just the opening credits of the pilot.  Then comes … The Orb.  I don’t want to spoil it for you, but The Orb is one of the most intelligent pieces of television history I’ve ever seen.  Brisco County, Jr. showed me television series can be intelligent — I had already known that from Star Trek and Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood and a few other things, of course, but BCJ showed me television shows, if handled by intelligent people such as Carlton Cuse, can plan ahead, come up with engaging story arcs and intentional character development, and quality episodes that not only entertain but also demand an intellectual response as well.  Brisco County, Jr. did not just come up with neat ideas and change directions to make the story bigger and better, oh no: BCJ worked out ideas and directions in advance and started heading on that cohesive path from the beginning — just like all writers are supposed to do anyway.  As you know by now, that’s one of the key factors in why Babylon 5 is the best show of all time (and my favorite), and it’s one of the key factors in why The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. is the most heartbreakingly early-cancelled show of all time.  It could have gone in several engaging directions, and from what I’ve learned about the plans Mr. Cuse and Co. had for where the show could have gone, beyond just “nabbing the Bly Gang” and understanding The Orb, it had as much possibility as The Ol’ West itself — and that’s a vista of great and wondrous and plentiful possibilities indeed.  So I’m going to file my claim for The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. as the most regrettably-prematurely cancelled show of all time (real fans saw what I did there).

But Let’s Not Wallow in Regrets

In one sense, this has become a self-perpetuating problem.  As mentioned throughout, we, the mindful viewers, having caught on to the wiles and dastardly habits of this abominable practice are reticent to even watch new programs until after a season or two is safely on some streaming service so we don’t get our hopes and hearts attached to some new cast of characters only to have them teleported into the Nether Realms of Cancellation all too soon.  And because of this reticence, shows get low viewership, unsatisfactory ratings, and cancelled.  It’s a terrible cycle.

Another facet of the problem is the mind-blowingly nonsensical decision by the Creative Teams and their Advertising Buddies not to let us know “hey, there’s actually a cohesive story here you’ll want to dig into from the beginning.”  That’s one of the reasons I didn’t start watching Lost until a few seasons into it: the show looked interesting, but all the initial commercials made it seem like Gilligan’s Island: The Drama.  Now, had I known there was going to be a very interesting story arc to the whole thing, I may have started watching it from the beginning.  Thankfully, this is one of the few shows that had a faithful following enough to allow it to tell its complete story (and yes, most of you are still wrong about its ending and the point of the whole show).  But some shows are not so fortunate: take Pan Am, for example.  All the advertisement for it was just “here’s a period piece drama about aeroplanes!”  Now, if they had said, even briefly and quietly, “but wait, there’s more: there’s an ongoing story of espionage and conflict,” I might have given it a look — and so, likely, would have thousands of others.  I’m not saying you have to spoil all the surprises, but don’t expect me to watch a show just hoping to be pleasantly surprised there’s more to it than what all the millions of advertising budget monies have made it out to be.  I did that with Brisco County, Jr., and Fox Executives broke my heart.

“But wait!” you shout.  “What about Freaks and Geeks and The Prisoner and My So-Called Life, and all the other great cancelled-too-soon shows you haven’t seen yet?”  Whoops.  Let the cat out of the bag at the end there.  No, I have never seen Freaks and Geeks, and since I’m not in any way impressed with the output of these stars today, the thought of watching a show with them before they were stars does not grip me.  I remain ungripped (also because I staunchly refute the eponymous appellations, a subject for another time).  I do want to see The Prisoner, definitely, and I surely should, but since they sort of knew it was going to be cancelled, it had the chance to wrap up its story albeit hastily, I’m told (this is somewhat similar to BCJ, at least, in that it does come to a nice conclusion, but it could have gone on for so much longer).  And godspeed trying to get me to watch My So-Called Life.

Maybe this was just a subconscious yearning to return to the halcyon days of the early ’90s, when life seemed simple, and quality science-fiction shows were coming at us left and right, video games were done in glorious 8- and 16-bit majick, Comic World was on 16^th and Central, Mystery Science Theater 3000 was still being made, the sky was blue, birds were singing, and people seemed to laugh more, then.  Well, maybe.  But that’s a topic for another time.  Let’s not wallow in regrets or the past.  Life is mighty good today, in its own way.

Today we live in a fantastic-in-its-own-right age of excellent board games and Vanilla Coke and honey wheat braided pretzels and hula hoops and fax machines, an age in which we can revisit these prematurely ended shows of yesteryear and so many more, thanks to the advent of digital video discs, streaming services, and The Next Big Thing.  The joys and potential joys of these series live on in our hearts and minds and collections and clouds.

So there’s that.  And that’s my list.  What’s yours?