The Bubble Show Paradox

Television is a bizarre medium.  With films or a book or a play, you know that you're buying a ticket to see the whole thing.  With television, though, depending on how many people "buy the ticket," you may never know the end of the story.  These programs on the edge are called "bubble shows" and we've all had the unfortunate moment when they're pulled out from under us, leaving us with unfulfilled dreams of what could be, with only fan fiction and wikis to comfort us.

I'm going to be honest that I'm a bit of a wimp about bubble shows, and that's primarily driven by Pushing Daisies, a beautiful mystery program that aired for two seasons on ABC.  Starring Lee Pace, Anna Friel, Chi McBride, and Kristin Chenoweth, it was a show about a man who could bring murder victims back to life, but somehow there was always some obstacle in the way of revealing the murderer.  In the meantime, Pace's Ned fell in love with Friel's Chuck, a woman he could never touch since she would die, and baked pies, all the while being surrounded by colorful characters like McBride's ornery Emerson Cod and Chenoweth's lovestruck waitress, Olive Snook.  Jim Dale, who is perhaps best known for narrating the audio books of the Harry Potter series, narrated the whole thing and it was charming and one of the best hours on television.

And then it was gone.  It made it through two seasons, 22 episodes (the writers' strike hindered it from completing more), but ratings plummeted in the second season.  The decision to wait ten months after the final season one episode, rather than finishing off the first season after the writer's strike, proved a costly error.  The show never recaptured its audience, despite having some of its finest episodes at the start of the second season, and while Bryan Fuller, the show's creator, did manage to squeeze out something of a series finale, he didn't give us nearly enough closure.  What would have happened with the Olive/Ned/Chuck love triangle?  What would have finally happened when Ned and Chuck touched?  Where would the Emerson "missing daughter" story line have gone if it hadn't been quickly rushed through the final episode?  These questions still bug me, and it's been off the air for almost four years.  It may seem silly, but we all have those silly qualms with shows we love.  How many nerds have flown off the handle about the cancellation of Firefly or Entertainment Weekly writers waxed on about the cancellation of My So-Called Life or Freaks and Geeks?  There is always the hope that a show will get a second life ala Family Guy or Arrested Development, but those situations are few and far between; for 99% of shows, when you're done, you're done.

Which brings me to the point of this post-my current bubble shows.  As I mentioned above, I'm a wimp about bubble shows, but thanks to TiVo, On Demand, and slightly more time on my hands than I know what to do with (What am I supposed to do?  Exercise?), I've absorbed some extra shows into my repertoire and am now bracing for inevitable cancellation.  The three of them are Happy Endings, Community, and Bunheads.

Now, there's always a chance that each of these shows could get renewed (why else would I be writing this blog plea to the dozen people who read this blog), but clearly not without some improving ratings, a paradox I understand from a business standpoint but don't understand from a lack of viewership standpoint.  How can you not be watching these shows?

Happy Endings is probably my favorite of the three, and as Murphy's Law dictates, is also the one most likely to get the ax.  It's a show about six young thirtysomethings who live in the city (not NYC in this case, but Chicago), and have crazy adventures and catchphrases and fall in and out of love with each other.  On the surface, it sounds like every sitcom that Friends has wrought over the past two decades.  However, the show may be the first since Friends to get the quintessential thing about what made our NBC sextet so promising-an almost kinetic chemistry.  Every single one of these actors somehow radiates charm with their costars.  Each week, you aren't hoping for the same pairings, but instead you're hoping that Max teams up with Jane or Brad goes with Alex or Penny pines after Dave-whatever the combination, it's a hit.  It's quirky, adorkable, and irresistible. I dare you to watch one episode, any episode, and not fall in love.

Community is another show that knows a thing or two about chemistry, as the Greendale study group has mastered inside jokes and effervescing off each other.  Community, however, is more about the way it is constantly, inventively finding new ways to shock and awe its audience with geeky wonder and smart, clever setups.  Think of the way that it created six different paradoxes with the toss of a die or its clip show with clips from episodes that never actually happened or its constant meta indulgences with obscure movies like My Dinner with Andre.  It doesn't insult the audience by playing to the lowest common denominator.  People oftentimes say they watch television "because they don't want to think," and I find two things to be true about these people: 1) these people aren't thinking even when they turn the television off and 2) those of us who do want to think should have a place to watch television too.  With Community, I get smart, layered comedy that's always worth the time investment, and there's truly nothing else like it on television.

Bunheads may seem like an odd companion piece to the other two shows, but it just goes to show that no matter the network, no matter the format, if done correctly, a television series can be engaging.  Amy Sherman-Palladino, who gave us six sensational seasons of Gilmore Girls is desperately needed on television (she was not behind Season 7, and we all saw how that turned out).  The film may be a bit of a Star's Hollow redux (not just the cast members repeat, but also quite a bit of the character quirks), but in the second half of its first season, it's really come into its own.  The dancers are now less caricatures and more characters.  The shows two stars, Tony Winners Sutton Foster and Kelly Bishop, are lightning sharp and continue to amaze.  The writing, as always, sounds like its fallen out of the mouths of Dorothy Parker and Truman Capote in a gabfest.  In short, if you're not watching it because you don't want to watch an ABC Family program about ballet, you're doing yourself a wild disservice.

There are admittedly other shows that I probably should be watching that make me a bit of a hypocrite here (my mind keeps wandering to Laura Dern and her complicated performance in Enlightened, another critically-acclaimed, ratings-deprived series), but I will end with one final plea.  Ten years ago, I gave up reality television-I saw where it was going, and though I broke that pact once (really, though, My Life on the D-List was more a stand-up act than a show), I've never regretted it.  If your TiVo is filled with real housewives setting back the women's suffrage movement forty years, toddlers being shoved butter-and-ketchup sauce with a side of kidney failure, thirty interchangeable vocal competitions with prima donna pop star judges, and yet another show about backwoods billionaires, take a step back, take a long look at what your viewing habits are contributing to the world, and perhaps, maybe, just maybe, trade in one for one of the above three shows.  Pay it forward and perhaps we won't have to complain about yet another great show being replaced by a show about something awful, like washed-up celebrities learning how to bungee jump.

What about you?  What have been your favorite bubble shows that left too quickly?  Which ones are you currently biting your nails over?  And share in the comments your thoughts on Bunheads, Community, and Happy Endings!