Has fan response ever saved a TV show?

May 5, 2008 7:29 PM

Has fan response ever saved a TV show?

When cult TV shows are cancelled, oftentimes the fans try to get their show renewed through petitions, mailing drives etc. - has there been any cases where networks have responded to these fans by renewing a show they'd just cancelled?

Bonus question: do networks have a contingency plan for when this happens? For example, according to Wikipedia the cancellation of Carnivale generated 50 000 emails in one weekend - that must have been a royal pain in the a$$.

posted by forallmankind to media & arts (26 comments total)

Jericho.
posted by Science! at 7:34 PM on May 5, 2008

Jericho comes to mind initially...

But then it got cancelled again
posted by Oktober at 7:34 PM on May 5, 2008

I always thought the 3rd season of the original Star Trek was the classic example of fan mobilization.
Bjo Trimble, cards and letters, etc...
Is this just part of the mythos?
posted by Dizzy at 7:37 PM on May 5, 2008

Sometimes the networks respond to fan support in the form of a movie. After Firefly was canceled, fan outcry helped get the followup movie Serenity made, which was intended to tie up loose ends from the show.
posted by robbie01 at 7:40 PM on May 5, 2008

Family Guy in a way. DVD sales prompted them to bring it back on the air.
posted by purephase at 7:40 PM on May 5, 2008

Family Guy in a way.

And Futurama in a way too, although I think so far that's just been previously unreleased material.
posted by JaredSeth at 7:54 PM on May 5, 2008

Star Trek is the first example, and the network rewarded the fans with "Spock's Brain."
posted by kindall at 7:55 PM on May 5, 2008

Roswell was one of the first I remember:

Fans actively campaigned on behalf of the show, organizing via the Internet, sending Tabasco sauce (much loved by the aliens) to network executives and generally making their voices heard. This lead to the second series of the show and then to the subsequent third series, after UPN picked it up when Warner Brothers was no longer interested. There have been a number of similar fan campaigns since then, but I remember that the Roswell one was the first that I was aware of that made such a good use of the Net for bringing a fan community together to act to save the object of their fandom. The fans' role is recognized by almost every person who comments on the series, from creator Jason Katims all the way down to the actors. Source
posted by Bunglegirl at 7:56 PM on May 5, 2008

Arrested Development was on the bubble for its entire three-year existence; rabid fans helped push it that far and, if rumors are true, were instrumental in getting Showtime to offer to pick it up after Fox finally canceled it. (At which point the creator--Mitch Hurwitz--decided he'd had enough drama and washed his hands of the whole thing.)
posted by kittyprecious at 8:00 PM on May 5, 2008

The original Star Trek was given an extra season due to the fans. The movies were also a result of the fan base.
posted by JJ86 at 8:03 PM on May 5, 2008

Farscape:The Peacekeeper Wars would never have been made if not for the fan outcry after the cancellation. I think La Femme Nikita was saved for an additional season after fan outrage as well.

And yes, Star Trek is kind of the grandaddy of all "save my show" campaigns. Of course, that was letters at the time, not emails.
posted by gemmy at 8:26 PM on May 5, 2008

Save jPod is currently trying...
posted by tapeguy at 8:50 PM on May 5, 2008

Fan response helped score Veronica Mars a third season. (emails, letters, and I think a crop-dusting plane with a "Save Veronica Mars!" banner flying by the CW offices?) They tried again for a maybe-forthcoming season four by sending Mars Bars, but it didn't work. Which was just as well, as the third season of the show was pretty bad.
posted by greenland at 8:52 PM on May 5, 2008

Roswell was the first. They saved it by mailing in thousands of bottles of tabasco sauce.
posted by thebrokenmuse at 8:54 PM on May 5, 2008

Cagney & Lacey was saved by a letter writing campaign. A TWoP article about this sort of thing also lists a bunch of shows that switched networks for one or two more seasons (Roswell, Buffy, Family Matters). Most of those seem to be internal network dealings instead of fan campaigns, though.

And Futurama in a way too, although I think so far that's just been previously unreleased material.

It was new material, and contained a few references to them getting canceled.
posted by Gary at 8:55 PM on May 5, 2008

Designing Women wouldn't have had a second season without fan response. This was in 1984 and well before Roswell (and I'm sad, somehow, that I know this).
posted by girlbowler at 8:56 PM on May 5, 2008

family guy?

check out this
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 9:44 PM on May 5, 2008

Sometimes the networks respond to fan support in the form of a movie. After Firefly was canceled, fan outcry helped get the followup movie Serenity made, which was intended to tie up loose ends from the show.

This isn't true. And I realize that Joss Whedon himself has fed into this myth, most notably in the intro to the movie. And it is still believed by much of the fandom. But it just isn't true. Serenity was already in early stages of development when the fan campaigns started.
posted by Tehanu at 11:19 PM on May 5, 2008

Fan campaigns led to La Femme Nikita getting a (short but oh so good) fifth season.
posted by Lucie at 1:52 AM on May 6, 2008

Quantum Leap was saved by a large letter campaign in its third season, to the point where NBC brought it back with an ad that said something to the effect of "You Win, Quantum Leap is back". Fortunately, it went on to have a rather good fourth season.

Unfortunately, it also went on to have a rather bad fifth season.
posted by vorfeed at 9:50 AM on May 6, 2008

Twin Peaks got a few extra episodes due to action by Citizens Opposing the Offing of Peaks (COOP). That didn't help them tie together an ending that would make sense compared to just cutting it short though.
posted by springload at 11:14 AM on May 6, 2008

They didn't quite manage to save Wonderfalls, but fan response definitely helped make sure it was released on DVD, and (i think) got already-made episodes shown a few more times on various TV stations. The linked site can give you more details than my admittedly hazy memory.
posted by dizziest at 1:39 PM on May 6, 2008

Family Guy in a way.

No doubt about it. They actually acknowledge it on one of the t-shirts that came with the DVD's where Brian is saying "We're back. Your stupid letter writing campaign actually worked."
posted by tdischino at 6:42 PM on May 6, 2008

But it just isn't true. Serenity was already in early stages of development when the fan campaigns started.

I don't know the story, but this point seems likely to be wrong to me - all sorts of pie-in-the-sky movie ideas get to the early stages of development, lots of talk, hype, schmoozing, concept work, demos, etc, but it all means nothing (and everyone knows it means nothing) until the project is greenlit - until someone has signed on the dotted line and said "here is $60M" - and someone doesn't say that lightly.
Unless Serenity was greenlit before the campaign (which I doubt), then it seems like the campaign can accurately claim credit for Serenity. Impressive DVD sales are a good thing to be able to point to when asking to go to town with $60M of someone else's money.
That it had been in development for some time prior to that is normal, and meaningless.
posted by -harlequin- at 1:17 AM on May 7, 2008

Brooklyn Bridge in the early 1990s, I seem to remember Barbara Walters being a big fan and talking up a letter-writing campaign. Like most others mentioned above, that show only lasted a few seasons though, so perhaps the death-knell was inevitable...
posted by acorn1515 at 12:06 PM on May 7, 2008

Unless Serenity was greenlit before the campaign (which I doubt), then it seems like the campaign can accurately claim credit for Serenity.

From an interview with Joss Whedon (podcast, transcript):

AH: You mentioned Universal got it, there, was part of the reason they wanted to make the film the fact that there was this sortof fanbase for the show, or did you.. was it just purely the strength of the script and the ideas you had?

JW: It was really just, you know… what sold it was the show itself. The DVD hadn’t come out yet, so they didn’t really know about the fan-base. They knew that there might be some sortof cult thing, but nobody really knew how big it was until well after they had commissioned the script. There was no script, there were just fifteen episodes and me saying, “Here’s what the story will be.” And they took it from there.

So they really came on board with very little. When I say they got it, all they did was watch it.

So no, Firefly leading to a movie is not a correct answer to this AskMe about successful fan efforts.
posted by Tehanu at 11:00 AM on May 14, 2008