Man, don't you just hate it when you've got this gnawing sensation that you've forgotten something? Like there's something really important you're supposed to take care of, and you just plumb forgot to do it? That's the way I've been feeling lately -- normally, I'm a pretty organized cat, but I can't quite shake the sense that I dropped the ball on something fairly critical.
So let's go down the list here. Let's see... Water the plants? Nope. Took care of that this morning. Feed the pets? The little bastards seem alive and well to me. Did I leave a pie in the oven? Checking... checking... we are pie-free. Uh oh... did I forget to put on pants again this morning? Well, that would explain the strange looks on the train into work. But... nope. There they are. Huh.
Oh, you know what it is? I totally forgot to do the 2004-05 Dead Pool. Don't know how I let that escape my attention. And judging by the one or two reader e-mails that trickle in each month, some of you people are wondering the exact same thing.
"Hey, where's the Dead Pool, you jerks?" asked one.
"The Dead Pool is the only reason I bother with your garbage Web site," offered another disappointed customer.
"Concerned about the size of your package?" wrote a third. "This patch will take care of any and all problems in the bedroom."
OK, apparently not everyone who writes us is all that concerned about the Dead Pool's unexplained absence. But enough people were that we feel like some sort of explanation is in order for why we mothballed our annual contest to correctly pick the first canceled show of the Fall TV Season.
• Last year's crop of crappy rookie shows failed to inspire us. It's only been a year since some of these programs first hit the airwaves, and I just spent a good half-hour trying to remember if the names floating around in my head were actual shows or just some whiskey-fueled fever dream. The Mountain? Dr. Vegas? Father of the Pride? These were actual TV shows put on the air by real-live American TV networks? Huh -- learn something new every day, I suppose.
Unlike past seasons, when even immediate failures became the stuff of legend -- the ancients still sing hymns to your dishonor, The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer -- the 2004-05 season offered a steady stream of undistinguished non-entities like LAX and Hawaii. And that's not particularly conducive to the mean-spirited, ill-informed commentary that the Dead Pool has come to represent. I mean, how am I supposed to come up with one funny thing to say about Joey when that show's staff of paid writers had 23 episodes to pull off the same feat and still came up empty?
• The past couple of years, the Dead Pool had dragged on and on. When we first started running this contest, we usually had to hustle it out the door if we had any hope of publishing it before impatient network execs axed their first show. Then, something odd started happening a few seasons back -- TV networks started waiting before they canceled shows in a blind panic. Even worse, on the few occasions when they did yank underperforming programs in a timely fashion, it was usually to put these stinkers on hiatus rather than terminate them outright -- and that doesn't count as a confirmed kill under our byzantine system of Dead Pool rules.
The end result: where we used to be able to wrap things up by Veteran's Day at the latest, the contest was now lingering into December or even January. And when you have to wait three to four months to revel in some network suit's failure, well, that giddy little thrill of schadenfreude tends to wear off some.
• Our scoring system kind of stunk. It seemed almost elegant in its simplicity -- award three points to anyone who correctly picked the first show axed, two points for nailing the second victim, and one point for third. If any of the shows picked were among the first three casualties of the fall season, we added a half-point. Figure-skating judging should be that easy.
But maybe it was a little too easy. After all, once someone correctly picked the first new show to bite the dust, they enjoyed a fairly comfortable three-point lead, meaning the only way they could possibly be caught was if some lucky stiff was prescient enough to accurately predict the second and third shows canceled -- and even then, the contest would have ended in a tie. Which is a round-about way of saying that the typical Dead Pool had about as much drama and unpredictability as a One Tree Hill episode. Which is to say, none.
Something had to be done. So in the fine tradition of a TV network pulling an ill-conceived sitcom off its schedule for "retooling," we tabled the Dead Pool until such time as we could be inspired to come up with a new and improved version that didn't annoy and irritate us.
Ladies and gentlemen -- this is the time.
Look at the 31 new shows that are in the process of popping up all over the six broadcast networks this fall. By our count, there's maybe one or two that deserve to be hits, another handful that might amount to something some day, and two dozen more that could disappear right now without inconveniencing anyone, including the people employed by those shows. This is a season where some producer got the idea that Geena Davis would make a perfectly fine choice for Leader of the Free World, while another one thought Dennis Hopper would be a crackerjack Pentagon Big Wheel -- and both producers decided to share their chilling visions of an America Gone Wrong with us. It's a season where someone thought that Freddie Prinze Jr. not only should act but get his own self-titled sitcom, where the landscape is choked with interchangeable procedural drams, where someone got it in his thick skull that The Apprentice was such riveting TV that it needed its own spinoff. Starring Martha Stewart.
Folks, if ever there was a season for the Dead Pool to make its triumphant return, this the one. So without further ado, we'd...
Hold on just a minute there. What about the last Dead Pool you held? Who won that one?
Oh. That.
We're certain nearly every TeeVee reader has committed to memory the order in which shows are canceled. But for the one or two of you who haven't, the 2003-04 season saw Luis, Coupling and Skin get retired in 1-2-3 order. Five readers picked Fox's what-were-they-thinking sitcom built around character actor Luis Guzman as the first victim to fall to the executioner's axe. But only one, Neil Duxbury, got close enough to Luis' actual cancelation date to win on a tiebreaker. So, Neil, assuming that you still bother to read TeeVee and that you haven't passed away in the ensuing two years, please drop us a line to claim your Dead Pool prize package.
Runners-up who also selected Luis as their top pick include: Lane Hatfield, Ike Hull, Andreas Beger and Aaron C, who is apparently too cool to use anything other than his last initial. If they write us a nice e-mail that doesn't give us guff for taking two years to get around to wrapping up this contest, maybe we'll send them a nice knick-knack, too.
Honorable mentions for at least mentioning one of the three shows to get shit-canned go to MA Epstein, Scott Handelman, Kat Hazzard, John Guenther, Adam McKinnie, Joshua Buergel, Wade Snider, Tom Panarese, Andrew King, Allie Pape, Jason Mittell, and Nathaniel Irons. They get the honor of seeing their names in print two years after the fact. Whee.
How's that?
Fabulous. Now I believe you were going to explain the rules for this year's Dead Pool.
Absolutely. Here's how it works.
You're still picking three shows. But instead of listing shows in the correct order of cancelation, you're just selecting three programs you think will be off the air by... oh, let's say, Thanksgiving.
Instead of our old, suck-tacular method of keeping score, we've gone through this year's slate of new shows and assigned each one a seemingly arbitrary point value based on their chances of survival. So a lousy sitcom in a rotten time slot that may or may not star Sarah Micelle Gellar's better half would have a ridiculously low point total, while one of Jerry Bruckheimer's indestructible procedural dramas will have a very high point value. The day after Thanksgiving, we'll add up all the points of the shows that are off the air, and whoever has the most will win a fabulous prize.
In other words, you can load up your list with sure-to-be-cancelled cannon fodder. But someone could still top your final score by nailing a less-likely candidate for the chopping block.
So you see -- the new-and-improved Dead Pool now involves strategy! Game theory! Easy-to-moderate math problems! In other words, everything a top-notch Internet-based contest should have.
I see. So I'm not picking the first show to get canceled any more?
Right. But just for old time's sake, if one of the shows on your list is the first one sent to the showers, you'll get 25 bonus points. If all three of your shows are off the air before Thanksgiving, that's another 10 bonus points.
Well, that terrible Chris O'Donnell-Adam Goldberg show has already been canceled. Why don't I just pick that?
Of course, you're referring to Head Cases, which Fox mercifully killed after two episodes. Obviously, that's not eligible for our little contest. So if you include that among your three shows, we'll assume you're just a wise ass who doesn't want to win our prize.
Speaking of that prize... it's something crappy, isn't it?
Is it ever! The winning entry will receive a bootleg CD of our favorite television theme songs, a copy of The Book of Rudy: The Wit and Wisdom of Rudy Boesch signed by a Vidiot, and one of our ratty, old T-shirts. It may not sound like much, but at least it won't screw up your taxes.
I notice you keep saying "off the air." Does that mean shows on hiatus finally count?
Yup. We're tired of fighting that battle.
Super. So how do I enter?
Send us an e-mail with your three picks to teevee [at] teevee [dot] org by October 7th. Include your name. Easy, huh?
Sure. So you're going to remember to give out prizes this time, right, or should I expect to hear from you around 2007?
What did I just say about being a wise ass?
(Stay tuned for our handicapping of all the fall series and their chances for being cancelled -- along with their now-vital point values! We'll be posting them shortly. --Ed.)
