by Marcia Studley

Created on: May 31, 2009

Fan campaigns to save cancelled, or soon-to-be-cancelled TV shows is nothing new. While the internet has changed the way some of this works, it's been going on for decades.

The granddaddy of the saved TV show is the original Star Trek, way back in the sixties. Cancelled by NBC, a massive write-in campaign resulted in a first for fandom - a cancelled show put back on the schedule. Unfortunately, Star Trek only lasted one more year, and frankly, that's usually the story of saved shows. They seem to have just one more year in them, but the networks make a lot of fans happy, and it saves them from having their entire schedule boycotted.

The next show to get a new life that I recall was Cagney and Lacey. The rub here is that the producers not-so-covertly instigated the movement. Their comments about the show's status riled up the fans, who took their anger over the show's impending cancellation to CBS. It worked, and the crime drama continued.

After that save, write-in campaigns became more frequent. Quantum Leap, for example, was saved from cancellation and went on for two more seasons.

Other shows also benefited from fan support, including Roswell. In fact, it may have been the attempt to save the science fiction series that changed the shape of these campaigns. To show their insistence that their favorite show not be cancelled, Roswell fans didn't just write letters, they sent in bottles of Tabasco sauce. Tabasco sauce was a favorite of the aliens. This has spawned other fan efforts that have included a symbolic item to try and get their point across.

As an aside, this type of endeavor took on massive proportions not to save a TV show, but to save a character in the early 2000's. Michael Shanks had left Stargate SG-1, and the fans were not happy. In fact, they were incensed. They began the Save Daniel Jackson campaign, and it was indeed huge. They wrote letters to everyone who had any association to the show - networks, sponsors, producers. Not only that, they took out full page ads in the Hollywood trade papers. This was not cheap. They also generated a ton of attention. The result? Shanks was back the next season.

While the efforts to get Shanks back on Stargate SG-1 was massive, it wasn't the first. Years before, fans had gathered outside of Burbank Studios to protest the killing of Doctor Marlena Evans on Days of our Lives. It was basically a one-time event, but for its day, it was worthy of making the news. What the fans didn't know, though,

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>