Donna Jack: A Lady of Infinite Jest

I've been thinking about doing the 30 Days of Me meme for a little while now, but then enna_xor went and posted her first entry in the 30 Days of TV, which promises an interesting daily reflection on viewing habits and preferences. I find these sorts of informative memes to be interesting, so it's time to give one a try.

I'd love to engage with y'all in the comments - even if you don't pursue the entire meme in your own spaces, tell me your answers in mine.

Day 01 - A show that should never have been canceled.

Four shows immediately spring to mind: Firefly, Pushing Daisies, Dead Like Me¹, and Carnivale. Firefly was cut down in its prime and was a show that made me fall in love with it within two or three episodes; however, in retrospect, I can admit that it had some problematic aspects in its worldbuilding and execution.² Pushing Daisies is my heart's true whimsy-love, but it was episodic enough that I don't feel a bone-deep ache of loss over its cancellation. Dead Like Me's cancellation affected me very strongly at the time, as I felt an intense connection to its story and characters in the midst of watching it; since then, though, I feel more distance from it, and don't feel as terribly.

But, oh, Carnivale.

Carnivale was brilliant and dark and gritty and, most importantly, it was fully planned out. More aggravatingly, the creator refuses to tell the story in any way except through film, how he originally envisioned it. At least Pushing Daisies and Firefly either have had or are planning sequential art continuations of their stories.³ And Firefly and Dead Like Me got feature films.⁴

So, that's my answer: Carnivale most emphatically should never have been canceled. I first watched this show five years ago, post-cancellation, and I still haven't finished mourning that loss. Discovering that HBO offered not to cancel it if the producers would limit expenses per episode to 2M and that he refused to compromise at all further complicates my feelings.⁵ I just want to finish watching this remarkable story unfold.

And, for fun, here's my husband's answer: Star Trek.

He doesn't feel this needs elaboration, considering the cancellation of the original show to be one of the most tragic assassinations in the history of television. Although, he did unpack it a bit further to remark that even one more season of Star Trek would more than likely have made science fiction a viable television enterprise thirty years before it finally became one thanks to Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Sin of sins, I myself actually haven't seen a full episode of Star Trek (the original series) beyond "Space Seed." One of our summer television projects therefore has been set.




1. Yeah, I have a thing for series created by Bryan Fuller: I almost put Wonderfalls on that list as well.

2. The Companion element being one of the most glaring that wasn't working out as it should have at the beginning.

3. See: Serenity: Those Left Behind and Serenity: Better Days. As a side note, there's also been some additions to Firefly canon in the recently released Firefly: Still Flying. Pushing Daisies had one short comic that was a Comic-Con goodie, but this news article shows there's plans for more (although those plans keep getting pushed back, it's still apparently in production).

4. See: Serenity and Life After Death. (The collector's edition of the Serenity DVD includes the River Tam sessions, which are a must-have.)

5. See the Wikipedia article's section on the cancellation.


( 30 Days of TV: The List )