CBS Can Go To Hell:
At least Kidnapped is getting to finish out its story. CBS is cancelling Smith, which is probably my second favorite show behind Studio 60, and they're cutting it off without any warning, right before they go into the big heist next week.

This also probably means not enough episodes to even get a DVD release. Which really sucks. Not too surprising... Smith had a great cast, sharp writing and edgy subject matter. It's really only the kind of thing that's going to succeed on HBO. Which is where more and more of my viewing is going. I've also learned an important lesson, that it doesn't pay to invest any time in CBS's serials, since they're likely to pull them without any consideration for viewer payoff. Since the only other thing I'm watching on CBS is (or was) The Unit and Shark, I won't have any particular trouble just letting the network go entirely.

Studio 60 and The Nine are now the only new shows I'm excited about that remain on the air. It looks like Heroes is the big success story of the season, a shame since it's the one show that disappointed me after a promising start. Hopefully it'll start getting a lot better, fast, because it's most likely to be the show that sticks around. I'm also hoping that NBC and ABC will be smarter about letting their new shows build an audience, but after Kidnapped got a quick cancellation, I'm not holding my breath.

Then again, Kidnapped *really* had low ratings, and at least NBC did give the show's producers 10 more episodes to wrap up, which is forward-thinking in terms of promoting future serials. CBS just cut their best new shows out at the knees, and I'll remember that next year and the year after that at least when figuring out which new shows to try.