by Carol Natoli

Created on: May 18, 2009   Last Updated: June 12, 2009

Just like anything that one hears rumors about, it is easier to prevent something from happening than trying to fix it, after the fact. Regarding the weekly television shows, it is easier to ban together to prevent a show's cancellation than to attempt to get it to return to the airwaves. Learning about a show's fan-base is easy to do in the world of Twitter and Facebook; clipboards of signatures no longer have to be walked from door to door in your neighborhood. Write to the network to prevent a shutdown of your favorite show. What has been learned in this past season, is that a show can be canceled even if you do not see it coming. The networks are disappointing viewers and if they constantly cancel shows that they have hooked us into watching, then perhaps we don't have to support them. Be cognizant as to which networks do this time and time again. Most people only notice which shows are cancelled or rumored to be but it is important to pay attention to the network(s) that do this constantly; keep a tally of this information.

An example, was one of Friday night's most popular shows, a few years ago, and was watched by so many people. All of a sudden, an ending to the series got thrown together, which did not do the show justice. All the shows were so well-written; I can't even remember how it ended. The only memory of the show's final episode was that last show was terrible and there was no leading up to the end. It didn't even appear as if it was the end of a season, never mind the final chapter of a series, and that's when many of us lost our faith in how network executives do their job.

Another injustice was "Friday Night Lights". It came back to a local network this season, after being sent along its way to a network that one had to subscribed to. The new season is almost over, and in the beginning, we all know that there were changes since we last saw it on our local network, but no one that has been interviewed can figure out a very important point. Is the local network a season behind the subscriber network or a network unfamiliar to most people? is the season that we are finishing watching the same as the season when it was not visible on our cable station? Is this show on the other network anymore? No one knows if we lost a year or not. The mother is now the principal of the school, but is that what others saw when they watched the show on a channel in the hundred, such as 400? Because it had not been on a local network, no one really knew when it was on. A whole season of baseball a few years ago, worked the same way!

There is a sloppiness of how things are thrown together or done, seemingly haphazardly. It is time for professionalism and for everyone to do their job well. What can we do? Strength is in numbers and blogging and Twittering may be the best way to go, with the biggest audience. Can't the networks be responsible for the outcomes? Perhaps we should all start boycotting what their advertisers want us to buy. That would be a catastrophe, if such news hit the Internet, yet, perhaps that methodology is long overdue! Why not use your computer, too, to help save those favorite TV shows....start blogging!

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