TVSquad

This was bound to happen. When NBC Universal decided to purchase The Weather Channel earlier this year I'm sure there were some questions as to how this would affect the network's Weather Plus operation. You mean you don't know about Weather Plus? Sure you do! It's the 4-year old digital content operation that paired the network with their affiliates to air its content on their digital channels. It's also what MSNBC and CNBC have been using the last few years during times of severe weather.

Well, the answer to if both Weather Plus and The Weather Channel would be run simultaneously has been answered: they won't. NBC News President Steve Capus said Weather Plus operation would be phased out in stages through the end of the year, affecting both on- and off-air staff. There is no word if any of the Weather Plus technology or staff will be integrated into other aspects of the News division or into TWC in general.

The Riches was one of those shows that suffered from the p-word: potential. With an interesting story -- a family of Travelers settle into a stolen life as an upper-middle-class suburban family -- and excellent acting performances from Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver, the show had the same breakout potential as any of FX's other dramas.

But the show's potential was never realized, either creatively or in the ratings. The show always had trouble balancing dark comedy and intense drama, and it strained to make the audience care about the Malloys, who were dealing with the consequences of stealing the American Dream. At the end of its aborted second season, FX had not committed either way to bringing the show back. Well, now we know: Mike Ausiello of EW confirmed yesterday that The Riches has been cancelled.

If you didn't watch Swingtown this summer, you're not alone.

The CBS drama posted low ratings over the summer, despite buzz over its salacious topic. Still, the show gained some fans (including me), who have been waiting on word of its renewal or cancellation.

Now comes news that Bravo will air reruns of the show this fall. The Hollywood Reporter says the deal "essentially closes the door" on the show, with CBS unlikely to produce new episodes and Bravo uninterested in doing so.

Another new TV show bites the dust.

EW's Michael Ausiello reports that Fox has cancelled Do Not Disturb. The network won't confirm anything, telling TV Guide that the critically-panned sitcom is "pre-empted" next week.

This comes on the heels of the show's producers apologizing for "perpetrating bad television," but asking critics and viewers for a second chance. Guess they'll never get it.

I guess the real news should be "MTV's Total Request Live is still on", because I -- and anybody else that is over twelve years old and/or doesn't listen to the Jonas Brothers -- had definitely forgotten about it. Really, what can be said about a program that started going downhill after Carson Daly left? The show will attempt to go out with some semblance of a bang in the form of a two-hour Saturday afternoon special next month. I'm not sure if anyone will cry, but I can almost guarantee plenty of unnecessary gyration and poorly-wailed lyrics.

It looks like HBO is just TV after all. After airing such intense fare as The Sopranos and Carnivalé, the new head of production, Sue Naegle (or at least that's my guess on who pulled the plug based on the quotes) is pulling the plug on the in development HBO adaptation of DC/Vertigo's Preacher. The Garth Ennis-Steve Dillon comic book series was controversial for its intense violence and handling of religious subjects, but it was also a huge sales and critical hit.

There was talk of adapting the series with each episode comprising exactly one comic issue. Dialogue was lifted almost exactly from the book with the comic art used as the storyboard. Fans were incredibly enthusiastic about it, but "the new head of HBO felt it was just too dark and too violent and too controversial," according to Mark Steven Johnson (Daredevil, Ghost Rider). Naegle loves In Treatment, Big Love and Tell Me You Love Me, so that tells you where here tastes lie. These aren't bad shows but they're also not going to jump out and grab headlines, and headlines are exactly what HBO needs for its original series.

In terms of compelling celebrity reality shows, Denise Richards thought she had a great story to tell. Her life seemed very complicated, what with her fights with ex-husband Charlie Sheen and their legal wrangling over their children, it seemed like a compelling product.

Umm...no, it wasn't.

Today, E! pulled the plug on Denise Richards It's Complicated, her attempt to keep up with the Kardashians and outdo the Hogans. The bottom line with Denise's show was that it really wasn't that complicated. It was dull.

Her family appeared as her supporting players, including her father who -- like his children -- is still mourning the loss of his wife, Denise's mom. Those moments in the show were sad, but a little went a long way.

Denise's getting in the middle of the employment issues with her assistants was hardly great TV, nor was watching Denise driving in Beverly Hills. And, yes, the ratings were declining week after week.

Well, this is just all kinds of disappointing, and a little surprising. Season five of Stargate Atlantis will be the end of its run on Sci Fi. That's a surprising bit of news considering that ratings are actually up for season five, compared to season four. Unfortunately, the economics of making the show are catching up with it. As the show goes beyond season five, salaries go up, and the exchange rate bonus of shooting in Canada isn't what it once was.

It might mark the end of the series, but we will hear more from our friends in Atlantis. The network has ordered a two hour movie and says the show will live on as a network franchise. I'm not sure if that means they hope to do more movies, or they are just confirming that they will continue to fill out the schedule with copious SG-1 and Atlantis reruns. The movie will be written by Atlantis showrunners, Joe Mallozzi and Paul Mullie. As you would expect, there are no details about casting or the story at this point.

I can't decide if this is good news or bad news. Moonlight star Alex O'Loughlin is staying at CBS.

Unless you've been in another galaxy for the past year, you know that the Aussie actor cultivated an enormous fan base with his role as vampire P.I. Mick St. John on CBS' Moonlight. The uproar caused by the cancellation of the show in May can still be heard, well, in another galaxy.

At the Television Critics Association press tour in July, CBS entertainment president Nina Tassler said the popularity of Moonlight was due in large part to O'Loughlin's fan base. So I can appreciate the fact that CBS wants to keep him around. But it's what they'll do with him that has me worried.

Perhaps the strangest soap opera of all time has come to an end now that Passions has been canceled by DirecTV. The gothic, modern psycho-drama set in a small Maine town replete with witches, elves, zombies and even some regular people, lasted nine years on the air. In primetime terms, that would be a hell of a run. For soaps, it characterizes Passions as a noble -- to some -- failure.

I never cared for Passions. It turned me off in the first season, 1999, but it wasn't because of the outre elements. I was actually interested in the gothic stuff because I'd grown up enjoying Dark Shadows with Barnabus and Quentin and Angelique and all those horror classic reinterpretations on a next-to-nothing budget -- furniture provided by Stern's Department Store, as I recall -- including werewolves, Frankenstein's monster and The Innocents, and parallel universes. Dark Shadows remains a vivid, happy memory.

There will always be Buffy, Angel, Quantum Leap and Magnum, P.I. on my "Oh Man I Want New Episodes of These Shows" list, but what about the more recently canceled shows of the past few years? Are there any worth mourning?

Maybe not in the same way I mourn my culty loves and classic '80s shows, but there are a few worth mentioning....

Moonlight
Yep, I know, I am one of Those People -- a fan of Moonlight. Though I agree it was weak when it returned after the writer's strike, there were lots of things to love about this show: the vampire lore, the episodic mysteries, the way they could have taken the love story (had they not muffed it up in the last four episodes), the actors (Jason Dohring and Alex O'Laughlin; not Sophia Myles). I can't believe that I won't find out more of the back story with Joseph's family and Coraline.

I watched Tell Me You Love Me a few times, but it never had enough oomph to bring me back every week. I guess a lot of viewers felt that way, because HBO decided not to renew it for a second season.

The sex-drenched show followed the lives of couples in therapy and was probably one of the most sexually explicit shows on TV. I have friends who watched it religiously, and some say they felt uncomfortable not so much with the sex, but because it felt like they were eavesdropping on peoples' darkest secrets.

There's such a thing as beating a dead horse and then there's beating a dead horse, chopping it up into tiny bits, and flinging it around like a monkey flings poo. The fact that we're still reading news items about Deadwood nearly two years after it aired its final episode just goes to show you how much it's missed. Well get this - as if we didn't already know - those two final "wrap-up the series with a neat little bow" movies are as dead as Wild Bill Hickok.

Like many people, I was miffed that Journeyman wasn't picked up for another season. But maybe we'll get our fix of Kevin McKidd at Seattle Grace next year.

Entertainment Weekly is reporting that the Scottish actor, who blew (some of) us away as the time-traveling journalist Dan Vasser on Journeyman, is in talks to join the cast of Grey's Anatomy. The rumor is that McKidd would play a doctor who scrubs in at the hospital after a stint in Iraq.

Do not adjust your web browser. You are now entering the Retro Squad, where we are reviewing past episodes of classic TV shows.

(S03E13) Originally aired February 10th, 2006 -- I could roll out about a dozen clichés when describing the series finale of Arrested Development, but I'm honestly not sure that saying "this was the end of an era" does it enough justice. For those that own the DVD sets, take a look at the cover for season two. There's a quote from Entertainment Weekly on it: "Once in the history of time comes a sitcom like Arrested Development."

Too bad FOX never saw it that way. Not only did they delay the airing of the final four AD episodes, but when it came time to show them, they got bundled together and aired 'em in a row - on a Friday night in the middle of winter! As I've said before, it sucks that Emmy wins don't dictate a show's future. But we really can't blame FOX because those Emmys are arguably why we were lucky enough to get three seasons period. Blame the people who watched Skating with Celebrities (AD's time-slot replacement) instead.