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Doux News: March 13, 2016

Wither Agent Carter?
This week: Our Tumblr returns -- Renewals and Cancellations -- Revivals -- Assorted tidbits and trailers -- This week in cats

Our Tumblr returns!

I'm so very pleased to announce that our Doux Reviews Tumblr is back! Our writers Mark Greig and Sunbunny have completely revamped it. I hope you'll follow us.

Renewals and Cancellations

I've been thinking a good bit about cancellation this spring, and wondering why shows either seem to be canceled too soon (Firefly, Continuum) or outstay their welcome (Dexter, Bones, Smallville). Is it a flaw in the balance of the television universe? There seem to be so few shows that end when they arguably are supposed to end -- Breaking Bad, Lost, Six Feet Under -- but they're the exception rather than the rule. Of course, we all know why. The suits don't care about art or aesthetics. They care about profit.

Unbelievably, The CW just renewed pretty much everything in their stable. "The CW handed out early renewals to 11 series, including The Flash, Arrow, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Jane the Virgin, iZombie, Reign, Supernatural, and The 100, EW has learned." Honestly, I thought this season would be it for at least one of their long-running series. I appreciate that Supernatural appears impossible to kill, but I've been reviewing the show for eleven years! When will it end? Will it ever end?

ABC also recently renewed fifteen of their shows, including a couple that we cover here at Doux Reviews: Agents of SHIELD and Once Upon a Time. (The others are: Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, Black-ish, Quantico, The Goldbergs, Fresh Off the Boat, The Middle, Modern Family, Shark Tank, The Bachelor, Dancing With The Stars, America's Funniest Home Videos). We're still waiting to hear about the fate of Agent Carter, Castle, and The Muppets. (And Nashville, Last Man Standing, Dr. Ken, American Crime, Galavant).

What do you guys think? What shows have outstayed their welcome?

Revivals

Just like the way the suits continue to renew shows that should have come to a merciful conclusion, the revivals have gotten thick on the ground lately.

Prison Break will be returning with a nine episode revival with stars Wentworth Miller, Dominic Purcell, and Sarah Wayne Callies. I'm actually on board with this one, since it gives them the opportunity to fix the not-so-great final season.



Maybe that should be the criteria, the real need for a revival: fixing a bad ending, like the Veronica Mars movie. Because The X-Files revival that everyone was looking forward to with stars in their eyes turned out to be less enjoyable than expected. And I'll admit that I've been ignoring all of the 24: Legacy casting news. Will it ever be the same without Kiefer Sutherland?

The latest revival fever has also struck The Tick. While creator Ben Edlund is on board, none of the original actors will return. And I'm assuming you have to have Amazon Prime. A lot of people loved The Tick. I'm personally fond of Ben Edlund. Planning on dropping Amazon Prime.

Assorted tidbits and trailers

Morena Baccarin and Ben McKenzie, stars of Gotham, became the parents of a baby girl named Frances on March 2.

Freeform's Switched at Birth was just canceled. Its fifth season of ten episodes will be its last.

Matthew Goode (The Good Wife, Downton Abbey) and Matthew Rhys (The Americans) are starring in their own reality series, The Wine Show, on ITV this spring. Honestly, I care nothing about wine, but I could watch these two guys do pretty much anything together (I mean that in a totally innocent way). Interestingly, the two Matthews sound almost exactly alike. What's with that?


Captain America: Civil War trailer! The big deal about this particular trailer is that there's a moment of Spider-man at the very end.



The much-awaited sixth season of Game of Thrones returns April 24, 2016, and of course, we'll be there.



This week in cats

If you're a cat lover and you're looking for your dream job (and you live in "Manchester, England England, across the Atlantic sea", and points if you know where that phrase comes from), Cat Cafe Manchester is searching for a cat nanny.

According to the article on Refinery 29, the cat nanny will be responsible for: "taking care of feeding and playtime, as well managing the education (training) and hygiene (clean-up and litter boxes) of the cats. The cat nannies will also encourage customers to engage with the cats and develop games to keep the kitties active and occupied."

A job where you are tasked with developing games for cats. What sort of degree would that require?
---
Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

13 comments:

  1. What went on too long? Oh Dexter, Smallville, CSI, Heroes and many more.
    I hope we get more of Peggy Carter, and Lucifer. Torn about Sleepy Hollow..it's so bad now..can they even save it?
    OUAT had had its day for me.

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  2. Fixing a bad ending is definitely a good reason for a revival or renewal of something that's been long-running. For me, I'd actually include The X-Files in that, as I enjoyed the revival and the finale was terrible (though having said that, the best ending was actually probably the 2008 movie I Want to Believe, which unlike a lot of other people, I really liked!).

    My biggest hope for Supernatural is still that whenever they finally decide to kill it, they at least give the writers enough notice to wrap it up. After so many years, a rushed finale or cliff-hanger would be awful!

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  3. Jenna, you get a point! It was indeed from Hair. :)

    Juliette, if they end Supernatural with a cliffhanger, the fans would probably... well, I'm trying to think of something outrageous, but nothing is coming to mind. If the current showrunner is doing his job, he must have thought of an ending. My favorite idea is the two of them going to heaven again, but together.

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  4. A thought just occurred to me about Supernatural: what if the end saw the creation of a new "supervision" of heaven? A sort of council that combined angels and some passed-on humans, namely, Sam and Dean. In essence, Sam and Dean don't just go to heaven, they end up ruling heaven. This way, they could still have adventures, they could still hang with Castiel, they could also visit with Bobbie (and their Dad, and Jo, and Ash, and etc.)... and they could still spar with Crowley.

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  5. I want the cat job!

    I'd really hoped that this would be the last season of TVD, so now I'm just hoping that the next season will be an abbreviated conclusion to bring it all to an end. I simply cannot imagine those characters continuing to lead their "turgid supernatural soap opera" lives (that's a quote from Angel, but it fits).

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  6. A show going on too long is better than being canceled too soon. I might not like many of the X-File episodes after Mulder got himself abducted by aliens and Scully got a terrible baby plotline, but I can skip the bad and find the good. Canceled is heartbreaking. My most mourned shows: Wonderfalls, Firefly, The Riches, Dead like Me, Dollhouse, The Dresden Files. Going farther back in time to shows you've probably never heard of: Profit, Nowhere Man, The Marshall, Wiseguy. Long time ago, there was a remake of Touching Evil with Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Donovan. I loved it so much. So much dren on TV, why does the good die young? Yay to Supernatural!! Will keep watching it until they become grumpy old men, hopefully.

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  7. I think that Nashville is dead. The president shift was the final nail in the coffin for that show.

    I am extremely puzzled about the CW renewals but when I read an explanation it made at least a bit of sense. Apparently the shift in schedules have gained numbers for them - example, TVD/TO draws more audience than the shows in that timeslot last year. I guess it's a question of budget. Let's face it, most TVD fans would be happy to watch a shirtless Ian Somerhalder for 45 minutes.

    I am also very, very happy iZombie gets a new season.

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  8. Pushing Daisies ended way too soon. Loved that show.

    Prison Break should've ended after Ssn 2. How many pfisons you going to break in and out of?!

    Please bring Agent Cafter back, it is such good fun. And I enjoyed Galavant.

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  9. Thomas Ijon Tichy writes: By the way I just adopted a cat. And you just joined the Agents of DOUX. The powers of the universe. Not a coincidence at all.

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  10. It's a gray cat and I have gray hair. We match. It's also even lazier than I am.

    I love your Rectify reviews. Can I marry a ship? I wanna marry Daniel/Tawney.

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  11. Not exactly news, but new for me: Fox are remastering Buffy in HD for airing on TV and maybe a Bluray release. They have made a bunch of mistakes, resulting in some backlash. Hopefully they will get Joss involved for a faithful remaster. I have to say that I'd love to see a good HD version!

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