Unfinished stories

I was surfing on Amazon.ca this evening, hoping to find a craft item that I have been thus far unable to find anywhere else, including eBay (I thought you could find everything there).  This surfing led to me perusing my wishlist to see what items I had added to it, which then led to me checking to see if Battlestar Galactica had been released as a complete DVD set (as opposed to season by season).  It had.  I added it to my wish list (I'm hoping it'll appear magically around Christmas time), and then noticed a link at the bottom of the page of a list that someone had created of their favourite shows.  I decided to peruse it to see what they had been watching.

I noticed a lot of great shows on the list, like Firefly, Defying Gravity, Flash Forward... all shows that I was really enjoying when they did their TV runs then were killed prematurely by their respective networks.  And it led me to thinking about another series I had recently picked up on sale that I had watched as a teenager, Space: Above & Beyond.

At this point, I started to get a little angry/depressed.

You see, there are a lot of really great untold stories out there in the form of TV shows that were cancelled before their time.  Networks these days are so focused on viewership and getting that latest greatest hit TV series that they really don't care that they leave some of us in despair of how the story ends.  It's highly annoying.

Take Space: Above & Beyond, for example.  I remember thoroughly enjoying the show, and grabbed it on sale because it's something I wanted to watch again.  Last spring, I went on a little bit of a bender when sick for about a week, and watched the entire thing from beginning to end again.  It was FANTASTIC!!  When I was done, however, I was angry for approximately a week wondering where the story had gone, how it all would have concluded.  Firefly - ditto.  Except I am, to this day, devastated that they never finished the series.  The movie Serenity was just a teaser, and not enough.  I felt this way when Defying Gravity ended recently as well.  Did they all go crazy with their hallucinations?  Did they make it to each stop on their journey?  It was as if Michael Crichton had never finished Jurassic Park, and had just left us all hanging wondering if these people had gotten off the island or not, or had all been eaten by dinosaurs.  Not exactly bestseller-let's-make-it-into-a-blockbuster-movie material.

I briefly thought about adding a few of these shows to my wishlist, but then decided against it.  I don't need yet another letdown of an unfinished story.

Networks, I am losing faith in you fast.  When you keep absolutely inane shows like Desperate Housewives, Big Brother, and Survivor on for seasons upon season, and kill stuff that actually has some substance and imagination, it makes me just want to turn you off.

Which I usually do.