Brilliant but still cancelled

19 June 2006 Rob Buckley US TV Post a comment

Some shows are brilliant, but never find their audience. They get cancelled. Then people see them on re-runs or rent the DVDs and find out what they’re missing. Suddenly, it’s a runaway success. Look at Firefly and Futurama: both resurrected from the dead because of their popularity on DVD.

season one finally got released on DVDBut then there are other shows, shows that were brilliant but were cancelled. They never get a release on DVD. Or worse still, they do get released on DVD and no one buys them. Look at what happened to Airwolf: season one finally got released on DVD and no bugger bought it: in fact, it only sold 20% of the total amount sold of the first season of Miami Vice, which is going to be this year’s big summer blockbuster. It’s a crying shame.

On the other hand, heaven knows what a 2007 big screen version of Airwolf would have looked like.

Author

  • Rob Buckley

    I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.

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