TV Flops' Fates in the Hands of Executives

After about five consecutive months of temperatures below 20 degrees Fahrenheit, spring has finally come. That means it's time to stop wearing leggings and start dusting off your Frisbee, looking for the perfect place to study on Butler lawn, and biting your nails while waiting to hear whether or not your favorite low-rated TV show will be returning with new episodes come September.

That's right, it's upfront season-that magical time of year when the five major networks announce their fall schedules. The upfront meetings don't happen until the third week of May though, during the sweeps period, which means that while some programs have already been renewed, there's a slew of shows that remain "on the bubble" with fates that are waiting to be determined.

Fans of a select group of shows that have garnered plenty of acclaim but disappointingly low ratings can breathe easy. Two networks have recently stated their intention to bring back critical darlings that still haven't quite found their audiences-Men in Trees on ABC and 30 Rock on NBC. Both shows are comedies, although 30 Rock is a half-hour single-camera sitcom set in New York and Men in Trees lasts 60 minutes, has dramatic elements, and features exotic sights like the Alaskan landscape and a post-Ellen, post-mental breakdown Anne Heche.

NBC has high hopes for its under-performing gem. The network has revealed that it's expecting 30 Rock to follow the trajectory traveled by The Office when it premiered in 2005-as network president Kevin Reilly told industry trade magazine Daily Variety, "There's a lot of passion from people who want to embrace it next fall. I'd like to believe we can give it the extra oomph that The Office had in its second season."

Reilly is referring to the way that critics and viewers alike initially received the workplace mockumentary tepidly. Due to repeats aired over the summer and episodes available for purchase in the iTunes store, though, The Office slowly built up its fan base until it became a bona fide hit in 2006.

Networks haven't waited until April to announce the renewals of every show - the destinies of ratings behemoths like American Idol and Grey's Anatomy were never in question, and even a few shows that premiered this year were the recipients of early pickups. Heroes, the geeky serial drama on NBC about "ordinary people" discovering their "extraordinary abilities," was renewed way back in January, at the same time that new episodes of My Name Is Earl, The Office, and Law & Order: SVU were also ordered.

Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which was once the most anticipated new show of the season, has been conspicuously absent from NBC's announced plans. This comes as no surprise to couch potatoes who have watched the drama's sad rise and fall-its much-hyped debut, watched by a solid 13 million people, and its quick decline into low ratings.

The show has few fans among critics, most of whom agree that it began promisingly but soon became too preachy and smug. The Onion A.V. Club's Amelie Gillette nicely sums up the problems with Studio 60, which depicts the drama that occurs backstage on a late-night sketch comedy show. As she wrote on her blog, "Aaron Sorkin thinks you're really, really stupid. Either that, or he's gotten really, really lazy in his storytelling, which is especially noticeable when you're trying to shoehorn about 18 different issues into one hour-long show about a show that is not SNL."

It appears unlikely that Studio 60 will be given another chance, especially since the show was pulled from NBC's schedule before sweeps so that the network could air showings of The Black Donnellys, a drama created by Paul Haggis, the Academy Award-winning director of Crash. Incidentally, The Black Donnellys will not be coming back for a second season-Haggis must have better things to do, like make more maudlin movies about racists who fall down the stairs.

The futures of other shows on other networks are more ambiguous than Studio 60's. As of now, CBS has renewed only one program for the fall season: Survivor, the grandfather of all reality TV. Two and a Half Men, which is somehow the highest-rated comedy on TV, is sure to return, but other sitcoms like The Class, The New Adventures of Old Christine, and How I Met Your Mother may get their last laughs this May.

Viewers are just going to have to keep their fingers crossed. But keep in mind that even if it looks like bad news for your favorite show, there's always a chance that a hit DVD release could spark a late renewal. What's true for Family Guy should be true for everything-especially shows that are actually funny.