I'm afraid the majority of this post will probably consist of me ranting again, however this time with good reason I feel. It may also inform somewhat informative and enlightening, so don't be too deterred.
So...upon waking up and getting out of bed this morning I did my daily checking of emails, internet stuff and Facebook posts, and to my horror I discovered a post that said that the american network ABC, were cancelling a programme I've been really enjoying lately called Once Upon A Time In Wonderland. The sister show to the Once Upon A Time series.
This is not the first time a series I've liked has been cancelled after its first season and I'm sure it won't be the last, its just very annoying when it happens. The problem, how I see it, is that these network seem to make decisions completely and solely based on money and ratings. Now I'm not particularly naive, I know that for these big companies those are what's important and they are big incentives, it would just be nice though if for once they just listened to the fans of the show and continued to make the shows because there are still people out there who want to watch it, even if that number doesn't quite hit their targets.
The other problem seems to be whether you can really judge a shows popularity after just one season, essentially after eleven or twelve weeks. I didn't realise that this show even existed until about its eighth episode and so I went back to the beginning and caught up. Even if you have a massive ad campaign, which I don't believe this show had, it still sometimes takes a bit of time for news to circulate and to gain more followers. Surely one season isn't enough and most should now start planning for at least two, to provide enough time and to allow people to get more involved and get more immersed in the story or with the characters or the setting of the show...it doesn't seem as though one season is enough time to portray a good TV idea to an audience.
Ironically, when I went on to the shows Facebook fan page earlier on to check if this news was real, I noticed that there were 1.5 million people who had liked the page. Now if even a half, or two-thirds of those people watched the show that's still a lot of people, surely that's pretty good ratings for a network show. I also discovered upon going to this Facebook page that there are now several petitions circling, in an attempt to force the network to listen to the fans and to rethink their decision to cancel the show.
Although I'm pretty sure they won't change their minds, now that its been publicly announced, I'm still holding out for that sliver of hope, that they will give the fans what they want. Otherwise if they don't, they are potentially letting down approximately 1.5 million fans, for the sake of some money, money that could be made up in future seasons, through the loyalty and support of these fans. Only time will tell.
