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The final nail has been hammered into Television's coffin. It happened on Friday, February 13, when the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spin-off, Angel, one of the most popular shows on the WB network, and most successful drama spin-offs ever, was cancelled. How fitting that one of the only decent shows found on television today would be cancelled on the nationally renowned bad luck day- Friday the 13th! Now, mind you, Television is not dead yet-no, it will continue to sputter along, exhaling its last breaths, which will surely be filled with such toxins as Reality TV and Dawson's Creek rip-offs. But eventually, we the viewers will turn off our televisions. Why? Because there's no more originality!
You readers may think that this is the whiny baby cry of a girl who is about to lose her favorite TV show. You could think that, but you'd be wrong! This is the outcry of an original thinker-an artist in my own right. I paint with words and ideas. And goddamnit, I think others should do the same! There is something to be said for what a little creativity can do for the mind and the spirit. And television, hell, even the movies nowadays----the ENTIRE entertainment industry is squelching that. Television shows lately seem to fall into one of seven categories, with a few rare exceptions: Police drama/comedy, Law Drama/Comedy, Medical Drama/Comedy, Family drama/comedy, BIG nighttime soap opera, or, Reality television. And when they do fit these, roles, they do it oh so tightly. Anything with a quirk is not accepted. There is no room for genre tales. No, I am not bemoaning my Angel-but rather I have been spurned into my rage because of it! This has been building up all season long-as network executives decided it would be a fun idea to give people money for lying in a box of scorpions, I was dreaming up this little rant!
Angel creator Joss Whedon said it best in an interview with entertainment magazine staple Variety, "I thought that if a show was really good and doing really well (in the ratings), it was renewed. I was apparently misinformed." He then followed by saying, "I do understand the business of it," he said. "But to me, when they're scrambling to hold on to their audience, their revenue, their dignity, it doesn't seem the best decision. And it's certainly not the classiest." Then, Whedon added, "If there's no place for quality in the equation, I don't know why we're here." And frankly, Joss, neither do I. Why spend seven seasons of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and five seasons of Angel building characters when WB CEO Jordan Levin will just inform you of your cancellation at the end of this season when you've only got five episodes left in your shooting schedule to wrap the series up. Casting sides were already being leaked out onto the internet for Episode 17 of the 22 episode season when word of the cancellation got out. And then Levin had the nerve to behave as though this was done as a favor to the Angel writing team. In his press release, Levin, who is known for making huge mistakes with his network (canceling the potentially stellar Birds Of Prey, Promoting Tarzan as though it was the second coming of Christ, and anything