http://www.nbc.com/Kings/

Guess I’ll just have to find another use for my Burger King crown…

The reason I asked specifically about TSCC being a possible pickup is that apparently DirectTV has runs ads on the show and some fans were suggesting that as a way to save it. Now we can see that’s not in the cards.

DirecTV decided to try Friday Night Lights as a co-production deal for one season because they love sports-themed series, they wanted an original series with strong critics’ buzz, and they wanted a quality “family” show. (There are unconfirmed but reasonable rumours that they also wanted a more female-friendly show to help get wives on board with their husbands ordering DirecTV.) It also had to be a show that didn’t have a superhigh budget to begin with.

FNL was a worthy experiment on all counts. The football theme was perfect, critics adore it, it’s always listed in the “quality” column no matter who looks at it, and it was female-friendly without deviating from the sports theme of most DirecTV original series.

Oh, and it can be done quite inexpensively, since many episodes can be dialed back to a few characters in existing interiors. You’ll notice this season had a lot of dramatic encounters between 3 to 5 characters in their own homes, rather than big crowd scenes in the school cafeteria, at an actual football game, at Applebee’s, or at a big party. Sure, they had some crowd scenes sprinkled throughout the season, but it was mixed. Even the one church scene was a Christmas choir with fewer than 20 people in the room.

From NBC’s side, it wanted a show that it would be willing to let go but that it would also be seen as a “good guy” for trying to save, regardless of the outcome. And it wanted something that it felt at least some people would watch a second time at a different time of year.

So DirecTV and NBC agreed to split the production costs, DirecTV gets to show the episodes first (not coincidentally during football season), and then it comes in for NBC as a Friday night midseason replacement in January.

The experiment worked well. DirecTV got everything it wanted. NBC’s ratings for the show weren’t great, but they weren’t horrible either, and it fits fine as a short-run fill-in. So they’ve signed up for 2 more short seasons of 13 episodes each.

DirecTV isn’t likely to be interested in anything else that’s around right now for several reasons. First, and most importantly, FNL gave them what they wanted already. Critics like it and write about it, it’s sports-themed, and it’s female and family friendly. It fits perfectly into the “pay extra for us and you can watch every NFL game–and look, you get original Friday Night Lights episodes, too!” marketing pitch.

TSCC, on the other hand, doesn’t bring DirecTV any audience they don’t already have. It doesn’t fit with their other original series. It doesn’t have a sports theme. It’s relatively expensive (although it can be dialed back somewhat). It’s not at all clear that people would watch it a second time around on NBC. Saving it means catering to a small group of genre fans, not being a “quality programming” hero. And all of the above apply to Dollhouse as well.

So it’s not that DirecTV is shopping around for bubble shows to save. It’s that FNL just happened to be a near-perfect fit at a near-perfect time for both companies. Everybody gets credit for trying to save a quality show, and if it works it makes financial sense as well.

Terminator and Dollhouse are so expensive that they really only make business sense as big hits. Which…they’re not. But big hits are not what DirecTV was looking for, anyway.

Nothing is impossible, but the things that made sense with FNL aren’t present in a similar deal for TSCC, Dollhouse, or even Kings.

I tweeted DirectTV

Weak metaphor, I know. I’m tired.

HA!