# Fox Cancels Surviving Jack, Dads and Enlisted



## aadam101 (Jul 15, 2002)

I'm disappointed about Surviving Jack. I enjoyed it and really thought it could get good. Chris Meloni did pretty well in a comedy and I love Rachel Harris. Oh well.....

I couldn't make it through the Dads pilot and never even heard of Enlisted.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/05/07/fox-cancels-dads/


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## sharkster (Jul 3, 2004)

I've never heard of 'Enlisted' either. I was watching 'Dads' but I thought it was already gone. 

I liked 'Surviving Jack' pretty much except that son - the tall kid - skeeves me out for some reason. I kind of felt like they were trying too hard on this one, too.


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## dslunceford (Oct 19, 2000)

Rake also cancelled: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2014/05/07/dads-enlisted-and-surviving-jack-canceled-by-fox/261517/

I liked Surviving Jack. I had watched a couple of episodes of Rake, but won't invest the time in watching the rest...


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## efilippi (Jul 24, 2001)

Surviving Jack did not get much buzz here but every post I recall said that the viewer liked it. I, and my wife, did/do too. 

Is it a Fox thing? I like that girl and mindy but my wife hates both of them. They are both renewed, I think. I'm sure there are corporate reasons for the decision, but I could see Jack running successfully behind Goldbergs or Modern Family, even. Same kind of humor.

Oh well. This is why we don't get the big bucks. But as I heard Emily Deschanel say, Bones continues, just don't seem to be able to kill it.


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

I liked Surviving Jack quite a bit. Sad to hear it's cancelled.

Didn't watch either of the other two.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

I've enjoyed the episodes of Enlisted that I've watched. In fact, I watched two of them last night. But I've known it wasn't going to be renewed so I can't say I'm bummed. 

Never watched any of the others.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Never saw Surviving Jack or Dads, but I did enjoy Enlisted. It was silly and downright stupid at times, but it also made me laugh, so mission accomplished. I also enjoyed Rake.

I think most shows that get introduced late in the season get lost in the shuffle, regardless of how good they are. By mid-season, most people have established a set schedule of shows they watch and anything new tends to get overlooked.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

I enjoyed Surviving Jack and Rake, but figured since I liked them, they were gone (Rake I think had already been announced as being gone). I watched a few episodes of Enlisted, decided it was a REALLY poor imitation of the movie Stripes and cut it loose. Didn't like Dads from the pilot and saw no potential it would be funny.


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## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

True story: my daughter, who's 9, saw it posted online sometime during the day that Surviving Jack was cancelled.

Last night at the dinner table, we were making conversation, and she said, "Dad? Now, don't get mad, I know they've only had one episode, but 24: Surviving Jack was cancelled."

Greg


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

That would be a good series. A retrospective on what it takes to have encountered Jack Bauer and lived. I think the number of people who have done that is rather small, isn't it?


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## DreadPirateRob (Nov 12, 2002)

I enjoyed Enlisted - it was really starting to find its stride. Oh well.


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## ClutchBrake (Sep 5, 2001)

Other than the d-bag brother I enjoyed Enlisted as well. Good harmless fun when I want to watch something light.


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## markz (Oct 22, 2002)

I watched all 4 of these shows, but will only really miss Surviving Jack.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

I've learned not to get too attached to network TV shows anymore. There have simply been too many shows that I liked that have been canceled when a lot of other garbage shows get a bigger audience. Any shows that illustrate a glimmer of intelligence, quality storytelling, and acting are usually the first to go, but occasionally something decent like The Good Wife manages to survive.

Cable shows tend to have a longer lifespan simply because they don't expect to get big numbers right off the bat.

Let's face it. The majority of TV is mindless crap these days anyway. I watch dozens of shows each week, but I could probably count the number on one hand that I actually look forward to watching. The rest is just filler.


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## That Don Guy (Mar 13, 2003)

Now watch _Dads_ win an Emmy (for the song from the last episode).

What - 13 replies, and not one "They weren't cancelled - they just weren't renewed"? We're slipping...


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## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

So _"Rake"_ was pulled just before airing the last episode (E13)? The Ozzie version was much better anyway. But still ... Grrr!


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

I hope the 2 main guys on Dads were making a lot of money. Heck, I've still got a few unwatched, and will watch them, it's a braindead show to watch while walking on the treadmill.. But, wow, it actually makes me think a bit less of Seth Green!


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

Watched Enlisted, enjoyed it but knew it wasn't go to fly for long.


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## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

That Don Guy said:


> What - 13 replies, and not one "They weren't cancelled - they just weren't renewed"? We're slipping...


I thought about it in another thread, but I'm too weary to fight a losing battle. I've rationalized it as thinking of "wasn't renewed" as a subset of "cancelled."


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## That Don Guy (Mar 13, 2003)

getreal said:


> So _"Rake"_ was pulled just before airing the last episode (E13)?


I'm pretty sure this is discussed in another thread, but "episode 13" is really episode 6, which Fox had announced for 2/27 and then pulled for a still-unexplained reason. The production order of episodes, in broadcast order, was 2, 4, 3, 1, 5, and 7-13.


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## Gerryex (Apr 24, 2004)

I tried the first couple of episodes of Dads and thought it was terrible and that was it.

I also tried the first couple of episodes of Enlisted and thought they were terrible too. End of watching Enlisted.

Lastly I tried a few episodes of Surviving Jack and while it certainly was NOT terrible I really wasn't too crazy about it. I know the kind of character Meloni was supposed to be playing but I still thought he played it too stiff for a comedy. I think the best transition from a perennial bad guy to a great comedic character was Garret Dillahunt in Raising Hope. He used to play really really bad guys (like his roles in Deadwood and Sarah Connor Chronicles) but in Raising Hope he was hilarious!!

Gerry


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## alyssa (Dec 7, 2003)

We really liked surviving jack but we've got a 14 year old. So it spoke to us

No matter how smart 14 year olds are, they can be really stupid.


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## BK89 (Oct 11, 2005)

FOX screwed Enlisted over, I really liked that show!


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## WhiskeyTango (Sep 20, 2006)

BK89 said:


> FOX screwed Enlisted over, I really liked that show!


How so? The ratings sucked donkey nuts. For the last original episode it had 1.33 million viewers, a 0.4 rating and only beat an episode of Hart of Dixie on the CW. Several shows on that same night with better numbers were cancelled.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

WhiskeyTango said:


> How so? The ratings sucked donkey nuts. For the last original episode it had 1.33 million viewers, a 0.4 rating and only beat an episode of Hart of Dixie on the CW. Several shows on that same night with better numbers were cancelled.


Because they put it on Friday night with no promotion and no support. Had they actually wanted the show to succeed, they would have treated it very differently and it may have gained a decent following.


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## efilippi (Jul 24, 2001)

DevdogAZ said:


> Had they actually wanted the show to succeed, they would have treated it very differently and it may have gained a decent following.


I keep seeing comments like this, implying that the network has spent all this time and money on a project but decided, ah hell, let's bury it. Do we really think these people are that stupid? I don't.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

efilippi said:


> I keep seeing comments like this, implying that the network has spent all this time and money on a project but decided, ah hell, let's bury it. Do we really think these people are that stupid? I don't.


They do it all the time. So, either they are stupid or there are other economic factors you aren't aware of.


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## efilippi (Jul 24, 2001)

TonyD79 said:


> They do it all the time. So, either they are stupid or there are other economic factors you aren't aware of.


Two options. They ate stupid or I am uninformed. Sure that's it?


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

DevdogAZ said:


> Because they put it on Friday night with no promotion and no support. Had they actually wanted the show to succeed, they would have treated it very differently and it may have gained a decent following.


I know I skip ads, but I swear I saw various promos for Enlisted while skipping through ads in other shows.. I don't _think_ I found out about it here nor from my pilot/premiere wishlist.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

efilippi said:


> Two options. They ate stupid or I am uninformed. Sure that's it?


Give me another. I'm open. You'd be hard pressed.

They bury shows all the time. That is a fact. Sometimes they have a contractual commitment to air a show. Or they are cutting their losses and selling whatever ad time they can for inventory they already paid for. If they think the show has no real future, why pour more money into it. But you need to air programming to be a network. You have a sunk cost. Sell what you can in ads to get some money back. Every dime they make in ads adds to the bottom line.

In fact, Friday and Saturday nights are dumping grounds for those kinds of shows.

Would they rather have shows with all excellent ratings? Sure. But that never happens. Even the most popular networks have inventory they want to burn and time slots that don't show well. So they bury the lesser shows already done in those times.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

mattack said:


> I know I skip ads, but I swear I saw various promos for Enlisted while skipping through ads in other shows.. I don't _think_ I found out about it here nor from my pilot/premiere wishlist.


I'm not saying they never aired a single promo for the show. I'm sure they did air a few promos. But when a show is held for midseason and then premieres on Friday night behind a show that gets horrible ratings that FOX is essentially just burning off (Raising Hope), you can bet that they didn't have high expectations for the show, and thus their treatment of it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.


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## Hoffer (Jun 1, 2001)

I had never heard of Surviving Jack. I watched a couple episodes of the other 2 shows, but gave up on them.


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## That Don Guy (Mar 13, 2003)

The four unaired episodes of _Enlisted_ will air on Sundays at 7:00 starting June 1.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

DevdogAZ said:


> I'm not saying they never aired a single promo for the show. I'm sure they did air a few promos. But when a show is held for midseason and then premieres on Friday night behind a show that gets horrible ratings that FOX is essentially just burning off (Raising Hope), you can bet that they didn't have high expectations for the show, and thus their treatment of it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.


Somewhere I actually saw a promo for it.

It showed the father vandalizing the son's guitar.

I immediately erased all the episodes I'd Tivo'ed and copied to PC to watch later.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

unitron said:


> Somewhere I actually saw a promo for it.
> 
> It showed the father vandalizing the son's guitar.
> 
> I immediately erased all the episodes I'd Tivo'ed and copied to PC to watch later.


I think you're thinking of Surviving Jack. My post was talking about FOX's lack of promotion for Enlisted.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

DevdogAZ said:


> Because they put it on Friday night with no promotion and no support. Had they actually wanted the show to succeed, they would have treated it very differently and it may have gained a decent following.


I thought there was a lot of promotion for the series during the NFL playoffs / Super Bowl, wasn't there?


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## WhiskeyTango (Sep 20, 2006)

Enlisted was too lead in dependent. After a few weeks, they switched it's time slot and gave it the Bones lead in and the ratings grew significantly percentage wise, to a 1.0. When Bones was replaced by the low rated Rake, the ratings tanked again. People sampled it and found it not worth tuning in to. Not everything can get a cushy time slot.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

DevdogAZ said:


> I think you're thinking of Surviving Jack. My post was talking about FOX's lack of promotion for Enlisted.


I heard the creator tell this on Adam Carolla's show -- he called Surviving Jack basically the same show as "S... My Dad Says". I kind of get it.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

efilippi said:


> ... Do we really think these people are that stupid? I don't.


I refer you to what they did to the episode order of Firefly and Almost Human.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

DevdogAZ said:


> I think you're thinking of Surviving Jack. My post was talking about FOX's lack of promotion for Enlisted.


Yeah, my bad, I didn't pay enough attention to which post it was to which you were replying.


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## cherry ghost (Sep 13, 2005)

And now Kevin Reilly has been fired.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Interesting tidbit here in an article about today's firing/resignation of FOX president Kevin Reilly:



Vulture.com said:


> Multiple sources tell Vulture that, during the late April/early May process of deciding what Fox's new schedule would be, Reilly had, almost reluctantly, chosen to order 13 more episodes of the critically loved freshman comedy Enlisted. He also made the no-brainer call to bring back the J.J. Abrams-produced modest hit Almost Human for a second season. And yet, according to multiple accounts, Rice [CEO of Fox Networks Group] essentially vetoed Reilly's decisions in both cases. Rice's thinking on Enlisted, according to people familiar with the situation, was that the show wasn't likely to ever be a big hit, so why should the network sink more money into it, even if the show came from in-house production company 20th Century Fox TV? (The fact that Reilly had previously indicated zero interest in Enlisted made it hard for him to dispute Rice's logic.) As for Almost Human, while the show's ratings might have warranted renewal, it was a very costly series produced by a competing showbiz behemoth (Time Warner-owned Warner Bros. TV). If WBTV wasn't going to cut its price for the show, Rice, according to sources, saw no season to bring back a marginal hit, particularly since Reilly had already gone to bat for, and renewed, two low-rated comedies produced by outside companies (The Mindy Project and Brooklyn Nine-Nine).


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## That Don Guy (Mar 13, 2003)

That Don Guy said:


> The four unaired episodes of _Enlisted_ will air on Sundays at 7:00 starting June 1.


And, apparently, the earlier episodes weren't shown in order, as the 6/1 episode introduced the lieutenant that appeared in the last episode before the show was pulled.

(A quick look at the episode IDs on TheFutonCritic shows next week's is out of order as well; the final two will be the last two in production order.)


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## TIVO_GUY_HERE (Jul 10, 2000)

Enlisted in early talks to jump to Yahoo, a la "Community"


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

TIVO_GUY_HERE said:


> Enlisted in early talks to jump to Yahoo, a la "Community"


That would be awesome. I'm a big fan of Community, but I think I'd be even more happy to see Enlisted find a way to continue. It is a great show that was just getting going, whereas Community really told all the stories it needs to tell.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

I like Community FAR more than Enlisted. I watched all of the eps that aired, and even liked the show more as it went along.. but it really wasn't a huge loss.


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## ClutchBrake (Sep 5, 2001)

Yeah, I enjoyed Enlisted, but no big loss for me. If it continues and is easy to watch by way of Roku or something I'll keep up with it.


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## MonsterJoe (Feb 19, 2003)

Is Enlisted the one with the dude from Veronica Mars?

I thought it was pretty good.

I'm more disappointed about Undateable being cancelled.


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## TIVO_GUY_HERE (Jul 10, 2000)

Yes, the middle brother was her boyfriend


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## mlsnyc (Dec 3, 2009)

MonsterJoe said:


> I'm more disappointed about Undateable being cancelled.


Didn't hear that news but I'm not surprised being that they essentially burned it off in the summer. Not surprised but still very disappointed. I really liked it and thought it was much much better than expected.



Spoiler



Don't know if this needs to be spoilered and I know I've already gone off on a big tangent from the thread, but loved the Todd's guest appearance in one of the last two episodes, forgot which.


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## MonsterJoe (Feb 19, 2003)

I'm not typically a fan of comedies or sitcoms, but I really enjoyed D'Elia - the pacing was great. I looked forward to it.

Enlisted, I caught once in awhile while my GF was watching it...and I didn't automatically leave the room like for most of the shows she watches, so there's something to that probably.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

MonsterJoe said:


> Is Enlisted the one with the dude from Veronica Mars?
> 
> I thought it was pretty good.
> 
> I'm more disappointed about Undateable being cancelled.


I don't see any stories saying that Undateable was canceled. I think its ratings were actually pretty good for NBC. Where did you hear that?


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## MonsterJoe (Feb 19, 2003)

DevdogAZ said:


> I don't see any stories saying that Undateable was canceled. I think its ratings were actually pretty good for NBC. Where did you hear that?


That's the buzz on their FB page...or /was/ the last time I was looking at it.


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## Azlen (Nov 25, 2002)

DevdogAZ said:


> I don't see any stories saying that Undateable was canceled. I think its ratings were actually pretty good for NBC. Where did you hear that?


http://renewcanceltv.com/undateable-cancelled-nbc-air-final-episodes-july-3/

I didn't see anything official on this anywhere but the above link shows it as canceled. Considering they burned off the last three episodes on July 3rd, the odds are really good that the link is correct.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Azlen said:


> http://renewcanceltv.com/undateable-cancelled-nbc-air-final-episodes-july-3/
> 
> I didn't see anything official on this anywhere but the above link shows it as canceled. Considering they burned off the last three episodes on July 3rd, the odds are really good that the link is correct.


I suppose that's possible. But Bill Lawrence, one of the Executive Producers, said that the reason three were shown was simply because with NBC showing two episodes per week and an initial order of 13 episodes, and NBC scheduling two new comedies to begin airing in that time slot on July 10, they had a choice to either hold one episode back, or air that extra episode along with a repeat. They chose the latter.


__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/484803979294298112


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

mlsnyc said:


> Didn't hear that news but I'm not surprised being that they essentially burned it off in the summer.


Yeah, while I've even called some of these recent shows 'burn offs', it DOES seem like the networks are taking a new look at purposefully showing new stuff during the summer (to compete with the cable channels that have been doing it for a while now)? (e.g. Unforgettable, Motive)

So I'm not sure if these are ALL burnoffs.

This show grew on me, and I thought maybe it'd be back next summer. Some _other_ show made the 'baby bird' reference, and of course it brings Undateable to mind.


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## mlsnyc (Dec 3, 2009)

mattack said:


> Yeah, while I've even called some of these recent shows 'burn offs', it DOES seem like the networks are taking a new look at purposefully showing new stuff during the summer (to compete with the cable channels that have been doing it for a while now)? (e.g. Unforgettable, Motive)
> 
> So I'm not sure if these are ALL burnoffs.
> 
> This show grew on me, and I thought maybe it'd be back next summer. Some _other_ show made the 'baby bird' reference, and of course it brings Undateable to mind.


Yes, you're right, it does seem like the networks are starting to see if they can work the summer into their programming. But I don't think they're fully embracing it yet. I don't know where Undateable stood in that regards but in the end it didn't matter. (Or most likely didn't matter. I didn't see anything official that it was canceled but hard to imagine it'd be back.)


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

NBC did call it the season finale..


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## Azlen (Nov 25, 2002)

MonsterJoe said:


> I'm more disappointed about Undateable being cancelled.


It wasn't. Undateable was renewed for season 2.

http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/undateable-said-to-be-renewed-for-season-2-by-nbc-1201273380/


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## MonsterJoe (Feb 19, 2003)

Azlen said:


> It wasn't. Undateable was renewed for season 2.
> 
> http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/undateable-said-to-be-renewed-for-season-2-by-nbc-1201273380/


Sometimes I am just tickled to be wrong.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

So I guess I was right when I said these summer runs weren't all burnoffs!

..and I applaud the networks.. These mini-runs in the summer seem to be closer to the British mini-seasons.


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