Excellent.

(P.S. In the event that you cannot get Simon to deliver the insult-o-gram, can you have Anil do it? As an amateur singer, gosh, I can’t figure out why I’d rather watch a show that spotlights amateur singers. I mean, here I could be watching some drivel about polar bears on deserted islands. And then the oh-so-valuable 12-14 demographic would think I’m smart and stuff on the internetz.)

Or there’s…

g) Advertise Life to people that like cop shows. While at the same time explaining that Life is a cop show, because I know that there are a lot of people that don’t realize it. A quirky, but not too quirky, cop show.

Dreadful/horrible shows get low ratings, for obvious reasons. But Life isn’t a dreadful/horrible show. In fact, it’s a great show, so why does it get horrible ratings? I’m glad you asked!

It’s because the majority of the viewing public doesn’t have a clue that it’s a cop show. We know there are millions upon millions of people that love cop shows, so if Life were advertised to the correct target audience, it stands to reason that many more people would watch it, yes?

“Lifesavers”, that’s cute! I like it. Life is in trouble, it needs life support.

Speaking of support, to help in some small way, I like to go to the websites of TV shows I like. Now and then I will go to NBC.com, click on Life, look around, click on things there. It has to help, even if it’s just a little.

I know he is right. But being right doesn’t mean he should “mock any of you desperate fans (ok, maybe just a little)”. I’ll be bummed when Life gets canceled, but I will not flip out in any way, and would never support those who will. Still, I think seeing a good tv show vanish isn’t exactly my idea of a good time, even if it involves being right.

#”BTW, how does one who lives in Portugal watch brand new episodes of Life the same night they air in the US? Do you get the NBC feed via satellite?”
Good irony. No, sometimes I use a torrent, but mostly Hulu. I also “help” the show by buying the DVD and seeing a portuguese channel who airs Life (the first season). BTW, how do you know I live in Portugal?

Anyways, Lost is doing excellent for its 5th season. Theres so many changes to the show since its 1st season, it’s like a brand new show, it’s not just a show thats only about plain crashers and surviving. Alot of people don’t like these kinds of big plot changes so 9 million is really good.

With NBC’s problems, Zuck will be doing a lot of shooting.

So much crap on TV doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if YOU or ME love Life way more than The Biggest Loser. What matters is The Biggest Loser mints cash (and doesn’t cost hardly anything to make either).

I watched last night’s episode of Life and savored it, but also loathed the oncoming train of unreasonable people who will act like Jeff Zucker walked into their house and shot their dog when Life gets cancelled. But he won’t have shot anyone’s dog, he’ll have just overseen the cancellation of a show that didn’t fare well.

BTW, how does one who lives in Portugal watch brand new episodes of Life the same night they air in the US? Do you get the NBC feed via satellite?

Dutchie: Blame Obama.

What is more likely to save your beloved [name HERE] show?
(a) A move to another broadcast network? (Scrubs!)
(b) A move to a cable network? (Law & Order:CI!)
(c) A big check from DirecTV? (Friday Night Lights!)
(d) A crazy cheap deal from its producers? (‘Til Death!)
(e) Sending various articles of flotsam to the cruel taskmasters at [network HERE]? (Jericho!)
(f) None of the above

And at the risk of adding more fire to the ‘save Life’ campaign, is a DirectTV like deal out of the question? I mean that in terms of USA and NBC sharing the production costs with NBC airing Life over the summer or from midseason on Friday night as they do with Friday Night Lights? Although I guess that would depend on how much NBC like the show…

Andrea, it is a great name, and while I enjoy the show, if I’m NBC, for all the right reasons, I kill it dead. I think that thinking probably makes me a lousy presidential candidate. It doesn’t make sense on NBC, and though I’d LOVE to see it on USA, I don’t want to lead anything that in reality is tantamount to “Damian Lewis must take a pay cut!”

Bobbi,

I knew about Life only because it followed Bionic Woman. It got no publicity at the time; only when it started to beat BW in the ratings did the show actually start to get noticed.

I bet if you did a survey of the posters and asked them what “Life” was, they would give you the response you initially gave.

“The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd.” NBC to Lifetime. On NBC, it was like The Days and Nights of Molly Dead.

What do I win? A DVD box set of some J.J. Abrams’ non-garbage? An autographed photo of Damian Lewis? My own personalized insult-o-gram from Simon Cowell?

A lot of people talk about the fact that networks never take a chance with shows like Life that feature ‘quirky characters’ but to their credit NBC took the chance and have stuck with it and are at least letting it finish its run, which is more than a lot of networks would have done. The problem is the fact that this and Pushing Daisies (another ‘quirky characters’ show) failed to find an audience might very well mean networks won’t take the chance again.

Of course I still give a lot of weight to the theory that Life flopped because it was on NBC who seem to have the opposite of a magic touch as of late.

It’s about Life. I like Life… a lot. However, I do NOT wonder why the ratings are so low. I’m assuming there are many more people like me, regarding Life. Here’s my Life experience…

The first year it was on I never even heard of it. Never even noticed it in the TV listings.

The second year I noticed it in the listing at the beginning of this TV season. Had no idea what it was about. Maybe it’s a game show? A soap opera type of thing? I had no clue, and still didn’t watch it, not right away anyhow.

About 8 weeks into this TV season, and out of boredom, I decided to find out what this show Life is about. I watched my first episode.

It’s a cop show!

It’s great! Love it! The characters are interesting and fun. The actors are interesting and fun. The storylines are… you guessed it… interesting and fun!

Now if only we could get several million other people to “discover” Life as I did.

And yes indeed, the main character Charlie would fit perfectly at USA with their characters welcome line!

Perhaps the show should be advertised on USA during other cop/detective type shows? Like during Monk and Psych, for example? I believe there is a strong probability that people that like Monk, Psych and other cop shows will like Life too.

Long live Life!

Breaking Bad
Mad Men
LOST
30 Rock
Survivor

Don’t immediately quantify reality with “stupid” when some of it has been incredibly innovative and allows for the most exciting drama on television. And face it, practically everybody watches at least one reality show, whether it be the male that complains about them and then downs Mythbusters marathons or the females that call network reality television “pointless” and then sit in front of VH1 all day.

OK, Chuck does worse, but the point is still true. Aside from Idol, Wednesdays competition is nothing compared to Mondays, where Chuck has to compete against House, Dancing with the Stars, and The Big Bang Theory/How I Met Your Mother, the last pairing of which has a huge crossover audience with Chuck. If you switch the two shows, NBC is still in 4th place on Mondays but turning a much better profit with a cheaper show. Chuck would also have the advantage of being a September-premiered first-run show for that slot, assuming the other networks stay put with their popular shows. (If House moves back to Wednesdays, the sledding gets tougher, but no worse than it is now.)

As for Heroes…

LOST 9.82 4.4/11 4.1/11
Heroes 6.92 3.4/8 3.2/9

Granted, Heroes against Lost might be insane, but Heroes will get slammed, no matter which night you put it on. The only other option would be to pair it with Medium and place both on Sunday nights once football is over.

NBC doesn’t have a single show that can compete with the Monday night lineups on the other three networks. Shows where they want to grow their audiences should not be put in those slots. Just concede the night with Deal or No Deal, Dateline, whatever, and be done with it.

The moving stuff around notion seems dumb to me because 1.) NBC has to air something on Mondays! and 2.) putting Heroes against Lost seems insane.

The Biggest Loser could lose half of its audience and it would still turn a profit for NBC, so Mondays would work just fine for it. NBC wouldn’t drop down to 5th.

no scripted, live action show that was suffering badly in the ratings after its first season or two has EVER moved to cable.

http://thefutoncritic.com/rant.aspx?id=20081008

The Mentalist has a “quirky” character in Thomas Jane, but of course, he’s on CBS.

Life on Mars is done after this run. Along with the other holes in ABC’s lineup they need to hope that Cupid, Castle and or The Unusuals stick because if not they are going to end up ordering 10 new shows next year to replace all the junk on the air right now.

Life is a goner as well. I’m surprised it’s lasted this long. I don’t see NBC sending anything to USA. USA has had great success with how it’s introuducing new shows. Everything is clicking. Why put a failing show on?

American Idol? I don’t get it. Some of the worst tv i’ve seen this year yet, I can’t turn it off if it’s on. I guess that’s the appeal. I just wish it would only be on 2 hours a week so other shows had a chance to be shown.