Another TV season, another attempt to win the Ted Marshall Open, the greatest TV dead pool in the land. You pick 10 shows, get points if they never air after this season, most points win. My ten, in order of preference (show #10 gets me 10 bonus points if shut down, show #9 gets me 9 points, etc.):
10: Gossip Girl. A no-brainer, as it was already announced that this would be its last season. Using the same reason led me to choose:
9: The Office
8: 30 Rock
7: Fringe
6: Private Practice. while it's not the show's official last season, Tim Daly didn't return for the current season, and Kate Walsh announced she'll be leaving at its end. Seems a little daft to keep a spin-off going once the character it was built on leaves. Also, it only got a 13 episode order, which suggests a winding down.
5: The Neighbors. This is the ABC sitcom where a family moves into a gated community which is populated by aliens.
4: The Mob Doctor. Besides having what sounds like a temporary title, there's not been much positive to read about this show, mostly having to do with the implausibility of the set-up (doctor does things for Mob to repay previous favor). I also think it's likely to struggle against Dancing With the Stars and the CBS comedy block.
3: Animal Practice. The standout performer on this show is a monkey. I say fire all the people and let the monkey run the hospital, Lancelot Link-style. Heavy Olympic promotion may help, but given how stupid the promos were, maybe not.
2: Guys With Kids. Mostly because it's the 28048th attempt at a guy-centered family sitcom, but also a little bit because it comes from Jimmy Fallon, who does nothing for me.
1. Malibu Country. Reba (where did her last name go?) more or less plays herself, a country musician who moves to Malibu to focus on family. It's on Friday nights on ABC, so there's a bit of a TGIF vibe here, but what little I've read about it suggests it's nothing to write home about. A calculated risk, as the threshold for this to hang on is probably not that high.
I actually matched up pretty well with conventional wisdom this year, as eight of my picks were in the consensus top 10 (it helps when you have four shows already announced as ending). The two shows I didn't pick that made the top 10:
Oh Sit - it's extreme musical chairs hosted by Jamie Kennedy and one or two other people. It seems like a parody TV listing from The Onion, but as a summer series I fear it may just be stupid enough to come back.
Whitney - I violated the first rule of dead pools (once on a list, the only way off is to die) by leaving this off, but given my multi-year run of picking According to Jim, only to see it come back year after year, I'm gun shy about sitcoms that I pick and are subsequently renewed.
I should also note that I did not re-pick Unforgettable, the CBS "cop who remembers everything but her sister's murder" drama that was cancelled and then renewed a few weeks later. That's the sort of karma I'm not going to mess with.
