Network Decisions Quotes

Sometimes it's hard to know why networks will stick with something. Sometimes the ratings won't happen, but there's excitement at the network, so they'll stay with the show.

That was a really interesting series [Threshold ] that I think would've been really great had it continued. I know Brannon Braga, who was running the show at the time, had a lot of really interesting ideas for what was going to happen the second, third, fourth, and fifth seasons, and they had it really planned out what was going to go on. But CBS just decided to pull the plug on it.

When it moved to Friday night it disappeared, when they find another show that can do what The Simpsons does, they will be delighted to do cancel The Simpsons.

So many articles said, ''China Beach' is uncancellable,' but when they dragged it on, I started to have doubts.

I think NBC got a little reluctant to get behind single-camera shows after 'Scrubs' didn't do what they thought it was going to do following 'Friends.'

A show can be completely dead before you even get on the air. I've been privy to a couple of those.

CNN canceled all the shows I was on. They're going in a different direction, but that's their privilege. They own the business.

A show needs time to find an audience, and they're very quick to pull them off the air now.

You know how trends go with television. Next year, the networks might not be open to taking risks.

I just don't see ABC letting go of soaps completely.

It worked well because Don Murray didn't want to be on Knots anymore.

I think there's really no rhyme or reason as to what keeps a show on air. Surely it's a numbers game, but some of the best shows get canceled, and some shows where you don't totally understand why they're on the air stay on for 15 or 20 years.

I wanted to do Buddy Faro as a small budget movie. They said no. So I wanted to do it as a series of recurring TV movies, and they said no. So I agreed to do it as a series.

There are shows that have been prematurely canceled, but I don't know if 'Smash' was one of them.

A lot of shows, like 'Cupid,' that I loved with all my heart, it shouldn't have been canceled.

So many times in television, you get cancelled arbitrarily as a result of your ratings in the off season, and you don't have an opportunity to really script your ending, which can leave it an unsatisfying situation for both participants and the audience.

I've been on one TV series after another. None of the network decisions have ever made sense to me.

I was going to say it's pretty bad these days, but I actually think it's pretty much the same as it's always been: There are a few really great shows on, and a bunch of garbage. That's the nature of the beast. It's always going to be that way as long as the networks try to second-guess what the American public will like. I wish that they'd just put on what they think is good rather than what they think people will sit through. I bet they'd have the same success rate, but at least the shows that survived would be better.