Today, Dirty Sexy Money, Eli Stone, and Pushing Daisies were all cancelled after posting season lows among adults 18-49 this week. But ABC did order five more episodes of its new series (based on the British drama) Life On Mars. All the axed shows were marginal at best, and two were interrupted by the writers strike. Warner Bros’ Pushing Daisies was an expensive experiment. It began airing with big buzz but also had early budget and production problems from trying to sandwich 70 to 170 visual effects into every episode — so many that people considered it an unsustainable show. ABC Entertainment prez Steve McPherson called Bryan Fuller with the news: “We gave it the best shot we could.” This was also the show that ABC decided not to preempt for Barack Obama’s half-hour campaign commercial which every other major network aired. Dirty Sexy Money (ABC Studios/Berlanti) should have been put out of its misery last season. It’s been a major primetime headache for ABC, especially the showrunner musical chairs. First, Josh Reims left last year. Then Dexter’s Daniel Cerone sealed an overall deal with ABC Studios last fall and joined Dirty Sexy Money as showrunner right after the end of the writers’ strike in February. Then, in June, Cerone’s 3 already-shot episodes for the 2008-2009 season were thrown out (talk about an expensive decision), and he was replaced by Jon Harmon Feldman (whose Big Shots didn’t last very long on ABC but who had worked with Dirty Sexy Money‘s exec producer Greg Berlanti on Dawson’s Creek). So that was 3 showrunners in the show’s short lifetime. As for Eli Stone, it was also from ABC Studios/Berlanti, and it was unwatchable.

Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.