By GREG GIORDANO
Since the advent of the Internet, viewing your favorite television shows in an instant has become second nature. You want to watch your favorite episode of The Sopranos? Click the HBO GO app on your tablet. Want to see who got voted off The Voice? Watch highlights on your smartphone. Want to binge watch both seasons of Orange is the New Black? Sit back and log into NETFLIX.
What people don’t realize in this new technological age is the power the Internet has in helping save shows on the brink of cancellation. Twenty-five years ago a fan might sit and wonder if they were the only person that liked a show.
The Internet now allows fans to interact and become unified in their love for shows. This unification can manifest into email campaigns, organized protests, or even the simple use of hashtags, en masse, to urge television executive to #saveourshow or #dontcancel.
Clear eyes, Full hearts, Can’t Lose
The rallying cry of the Dillon Panthers football team was repeated almost every week as millions of viewers watched them face off on NBC’s “Friday Night Lights”. They watched. cared for, and loved this show about a powerhouse Texas high school football team…until the show was taken off NBC’s schedule.
Set in Dillon, Texas the show battled topics such as family values, infidelity, school funding, racism, drugs, divorce, abortion and lack of economic opportunities, and of course one rural Texas town’s intense love of football.
Every week fans watched as the main protagonist, Coach Eric Taylor, kept both his family in line as well as his team in a vibrantly real portrayal of Middle America.
We met star quarterback Jason Street, paralyzed during a game in the series premier, Matt Saracen, his shy, humble replacement, Brian “Smash” Williams, a cocky running back born and raised in the ghetto, Tami Taylor, coaches ‘much more than just a trophy’ wife.
These people were more than just characters; to many viewers they were family. “You don’t even need to like football to like Friday Night Lights” super fan Brian Duffy assures. “The show has a lot to do with football, yeah, but it’s the writing and how all these emotions that are had by the characters are emotions that we all have in our best moments and our worst. It is the most real portrayal of high school and family life I have seen on network TV.”
Due to The Writers Guild of America Strike of 2007-2008 the second season of the show was reduced to 15 episodes from the usual 22. Huge with critics, but not with viewers, NBC took this shortened season as possibly an omen to cut their losses and let “Friday Night Lights” drift into the sunset. That is until fans got word of NBC’s plans.
Online petitions sprouted up urging NBC not to cancel such a beloved show. Fans pulled together through Facebook groups and e-mail campaigns to rally together like never before for a canceled show. Fans searched for a symbol that they could send to the network to show their support, so they sent light bulbs and eye drops to NBC, working off of the Panthers chant of “Clear eyes, Full hearts, Can’t lose.”
The show went on to air another 3 seasons on the DirecTV channel, with reruns airing later on NBC. Ever greedy, upon the series finally fans began another petition for a sixth season for the show, which was then altered into a petition for a feature length movie.
The status on the movie is still unclear but what is clear is the power of fans in numbers. Like never before fans were able to rally together and show a network that they mean business, and that is all possible because of the Internets power to connect not only family and friends and business partners and lovers…but fans.
The ‘Comeback’ of the year
In the past online petitions and movements to bring back cancelled shows usually began around the winter before the seasons were coming to an end. Fans would break word on various blogs and organize meet ups and campaigns to bring back the shows, and characters, they loved.
There were a lot of successes like CBS’s post-apocalyptic drama “Jericho”. Fans went ‘nuts’ over its cancellation and sent, yes you guessed it, nuts to network offices in New York and Los Angeles.
The NBC comedy “Chuck” was saved after countless users changed their avatars and Twitter icons pictures of the cast and #savechuck could be seen on many fans Facebook pages and Twitters. That, in conjunction with the website www.wegiveachuck.com, ultimately bought the show another few seasons.
The most popular instance of a show being brought back after online interference is probably FOX’s “Family Guy” which went on to become one of the most successful comedies of all time…and is still airing. Another success is FOX’s critically acclaimed comedy “Arrested Development”.
After fans became irate over a show that was on almost every critics ‘Best’ lists was canceled they petitioned furiously for another season. Viewers began petitions on the website change.org which garnered hundreds of thousands of views. In a then unusual move another season of the show was picked up not by FOX but by the streaming pay service NETFLIX.
One of the most unusual cases of revival will be seen next month as a show that lasted one season on HBO in 2005 returns for its second season, almost a decade later, according to deadline.com.
“The Comeback” stars Lisa Kudrow as a former television star who has a reality TV crew filming her comeback to network TV. It was a show a few years ahead of its time as it took the new world of reality TV and made fun of it in an awkward, heartwarming, and cringe worthy way.
Viewers hated that they loved watching Kudrow’s character, Valerie Cherish, in the most awkward collection of life’s moments. Cameras followed her as she went up for roles in TV shows only to be turned down or asked to play a more matronly, older character.
She would bring home baked goods to writers on TV shows only to watch them throw them away right in front of her. Valerie would just turn to the camera and make the best of things with a little quip like “Well I guess they had a big lunch”; all while you knew a part of her was dying inside.
Fans loved Kudrows character and pleaded with network brass and even began fan websites like SaveValerie.com. It also didn’t hurt that the show was still watched heavily on demand while other more ‘popular’ shows in HBO’s Rolodex fell to the wayside in second, and third (and on) viewings.
One fan on a “The Comeback” message board, “ANDand10”, wrote “This is the best news ever and a good reason for a rewatch. I DO WANT TO SEE THAT”, referring to the main characters catch phrase of “I don’t need to see that!”. Another user, “Powers”, wrote “I loved every cringeworthy moment of this show and am glad to hear it’s coming back.”
“The Comebacks” hiatus of almost a decade felt like an unbreakable record for any show to beat. That is until a quarter century old fan favorite was revealed to be gearing up for production last week.
“Twin Peaks” aired on ABC from 1990-1991 and was the perfect TV noir presentation of a small town soap opera involving the murder of a beautiful cheerleader and the crazy cast of characters that made up the suspects and those who were suspicious.
The show kept viewers on the edge of their seats for two seasons until the identity of the murderer was revealed and the series lost its steam…and most of it viewers.
The show has lived on in the fleet of fans that have watched, and re-watched the series for years and hold it in high regard as one of the finest shows on television.
That has urged creators to resurrect the show. A 9-episode, third season, is set to air in 2016, according to ew.com, on cable channel Showtime.
Voice of the People
The Internet has allowed fans a place to go and share their love for shows. Online petitions and the use of different trending hashtags and Twitter handles are now common weapons in the fight to bring back beloved shows.
The whole idea of fans being able to rally together and bring back a show is revolutionary. In several years will hashtags and trending topics and Facebook ‘likes’ be more important to advertisers than ratings?
Only time will tell, hopefully, if they’re lucky, you will get to see some of your favorite characters again…even if it takes a few decades.
Your story is good, but for some of the shows you went a little too deep into plots, which normally is good but it took away from what the fans were doing and how these shows came back. If you could take screen shots of some of the comments that brought back these shows it would add more to your story as well. Or maybe some videos from the shows, even theme songs, just so people can get a taste of some of the shows.