To quote the iconic words of that great 20th-century philosopher Farrokh Bulsara, “And another one gone, and another one gone - another one bites the dust.”
Of course, we knew Bulsara better by his later name, Freddie Mercury. You’re welcome for today’s earworm.
Gone? Yep. ABC has canceled Once Upon a Time in Wonderland after one season. The experimental spin-off of Once Upon a Time ran its 13th and final episode Thursday. At least all extant episodes got to air before being canned. That’s unusual these days.
This Thursday, ABC will air a special episode of Shark Tank at 7 p.m. before turning the time slot over to Grey’s Anatomy repeats next week.
Wonderland was initially intended as a one-season spring miniseries, but the producers would have been more than delighted to continue had it proved successful. It did not. Launched in October instead, Wonderland got lost in the tough Thursday night competition and never found an audience.
Network management has since admitted the fall debut was a mistake. The series began with an unimpressive 5.8 million viewers and slumped to only 3.4 million near the end.
The series starred Sophie Lowe as Alice, Michael Socha as the Knave of Hearts/Will Scarlet, and Peter Gadiot as Cyrus. Socha gets to soldier on, however.
ABC has announced that Socha will join Once Upon a Time as a series regular for Season 4 in the fall, leaving Wonderland for Storybrooke. ABC hasn’t made its 2014-15 renewal list public yet, so this announcement would seem to jump the gun for Wonderland.
Wonderland is the latest in a growing list of shows that didn’t make the cut this season. We’ll find out the final rosters in about a month, but here are those programs that already have been canceled or ended their run this season.
The Assets (ABC); Back in the Game (ABC); How I Met Your Mother (CBS); Ironside(NBC); Killer Women (ABC); Lucky 7 (ABC); The Michael J. Fox Show (NBC); Mind Games (ABC); Nikita (CW); Raising Hope (Fox); Sean Saves the World (NBC); We Are Men (CBS); Welcome to the Family (NBC); The X Factor (Fox).
Of these, The Michael J. Fox Show has to be the biggest disappointment. Given a rare full-season, 22-episode order on the strength of Fox’s star power, the series started with 7.5 million viewers against stiff CBS competition and fell to an abysmal 1.9 million before being pulled from the schedule after 15 episodes.
NBC has yet to officially cancel the series. That’s not unusual even for shows that are dead, buried and the sets dismantled. And there is still the possibility the remaining seven episodes will be used as filler before the end of the season.
Eternal optimism. TV is nothing if not optimistic. NBC has eschewed the pilot process and awarded 13 episodes to Aquarius, a new drama starring David Duchovny in his return to broadcast television.
The 53-year-old Duchovny, who starred in Twin Peaks, The X-Files and Showtime’s Californication, will play a Los Angeles cop in the late 1960s who begins tracking a smalltime criminal named Charles Manson. We all know where that leads.
Most impressive. BBC America was so impressed with what it saw in its new drama, The Musketeers, that it’s given a Season 2 green light two months before Season 1 even premieres.
The series, a new take on the classic Alexandre Dumas characters, is set in 17th-century Paris and will star a bunch of familiar faces from series such as The Borgias, Primeval, Great Expectations, Merlin and Doctor Who. The first 10 episodes arrive June 22. More on them later.
Testosterone shortage. Good Morning America has recently lost Sam Champion to The Weather Channel and Josh Elliott to NBC Sports, leaving poor George Stephanopoulos awash in all that co-host estrogen in the show’s 7 a.m. hour.
To be specific - co-hostsRobin Roberts, Amy Robach, Lara Spencer and weather forecaster Ginger Zee.
Solution: Look for the personable, gap-toothed Michael Strahan (Live With Kelly and Michael) to join GMA part time for the first hour.
Monster hit. The March 30 Season 4 finale of AMC’s The Walking Dead scored big. Really big.
According to Nielsen, 15.7 million viewers watched, upping the season episode average to 13.3 million. Total viewership was up 24 percent last season, making The Walking Dead cable’s highest-rated show.
Rick and the gang are now being held prisoner in a boxcar at Terminus. Somehow I believe Terminus should be worried.
Go, Vikings! History Channel also has a hit on its hands, albeit on a more realistic basic cable scale. Vikings, which is only halfway through its second season, already has approval for Season 3.
The Irish-Canadian co-production is averaging 3.4 million viewers. The series airs at 9 p.m. Thursdays.
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Style, Pages 30 on 04/08/2014