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Who didn’t see that one coming? ABC’s midseason drama Happy Town is headed for a quick exit. The network will air the show’s third episode on Wednesday as planned, but will preempt it next week with Primetime: What Would You Do? which did solid numbers on Friday. Telecast of Transformers was already scheduled for the 26th, and then Happy Town will return on June 2 with the remaining five episodes. In its second airing last week, the mystery drama (1.2 rating/4 share among adults 18-49, 3.9 million viewers overall) dropped 29% in the 18-49 demo from its disappointing premiere.
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Happy Town should have died off on Fridays, the show was that bad. Seriously one of the worst pilots I ever saw. And for ABC to have promoted it as “the network that brought you Twin Peaks” was just laughable. Twin Peaks was much better than this piece of garbage. It’s a shame that Amy Acker was in this as she is a good actress who deserves much better.
happy town was actaully a very good show, i dont understand why it doesnt air anymore. it was interesting, a lot of people watched it. i wanteed back on air. i never missed an episode!
Happy Town was a really good show with a lot of plot twists. The idea of it competing with Fringe is what killed the show. In many ways it was a new Twin Peaks. Have watched all of both shows and loved each. Enjoyed watching it with my GF and discussing what the possible twists would be. If it was able to go for another season or two then it really would have picked up as the creators could have fully flushed out some amazing characters. Sadly, we will never know.
And they cancelled Ugly Betty for this?
I liked Happy Town much better 20 years ago when it was called Twin Peaks.
McPherson brings out the worst in everyone. They are all a bunch of traumatized, fear based chickens over there. Working for years for a mentally unstable boss makes average execs exhausted and down right stupid. ABC doesn’t know a good show from a bad one anymore. Castle was a mistake that slipped through. It is the most refreshing and original show they have and it’s a remake of Moonlighting.
Boy I couldnt agree with your more. I am so sick of ABC pulling everything good. I think they forget sometimes people DVR these shows and watch them later. Every new show I have started watching with ABC the last couple years has been cancelled. The seem to like to stick with game shows and cop shows or ER type shows nothing that makes you think. Like Eastwick and pushing daisies. I dont think I will watch anything new on ABC until it has gone at least one season.
Massive waste of some good talent.
it was also called HARPER’S ISLAND!
Oh Amy, will you ever regain your Angel glory days!?
For all the bloodletting that’s been down over this show, I’d rather see ABC take a chance on a fresh voice than waste it on a dumb procedural. So the series didn’t reach the hearts and minds of viewers. 95% of the pilots they are picking up next week won’t either…
Keep writing original stuff gang… at some point it’s gonna break through.
Original? In what universe?
The whole premise was so closely modeled on Twin Peaks that David Lynch should have called his lawyer.
The quirky lodge owner = Log Lady
Sam Neill = Ray Wise
I loathe procedurals with the intensity of a thousand suns, too, but this was so not the ONE.
This show was a rip-off of every Stephen King mini-series and Twin Peaks episode, except without good storytelling. The writing was god-awful. But ABC does take chances, otherwise there would be no Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Brothers & Sisters et. al. –
whether you like them or not, they’re not lame medical/legal/crime procedurals.
The pilot screened poorly, but McPherson wanted to do it so it got on the air. His track record is looking a bit shakey as of late. V, Flashforward, Happytown. Besides Mod Fam (which is all the Steve and Chris) what has he done lately?
To be fair, both V and FlashForward had promising pilots, they just quickly became crap series. Happy Town was horrible straight out the gate and, conversely, Modern Family was awesome from the beginning. Happy Town is the only huge embarrassment out of the bunch.
i thought this was a good show!
The pilot and first episode were very poorly done and did not manage to create any atmosphere. Acting was terrible too. The third installment was much much better and finally things started to move — then they go and pull it off the air. Still don’t get who gets to direct pilots and why.
I did think it started out slow and expected it to be as good as Harpers Island, but as this was just a miniSERIES I thought I would give it a chance and as mentioned above, the third episode was getting good and then they go and PULL it?! The shows that I think should be OFF the air are still on and the ones that arent on the air always seem to be my favorites!! CANT win!! I just hope Modern Family and Cougar Town [silly as it may be] does not get pulled at least!
Maybe next season they can come up with a BETTER mini series, I do like the idea of a mini series for the summer!
i really enjoyed happy town i think they should have given it a chance
I liked Happy Town. I expecially liked that it would not go on & on like the failed Twin Peaks. I loved that ABC was airing mysteries that would be solved in a single season like Harper’s Island. It made it worth watching knowing I would see an end.
Far from a perfect show, but much more interesting than almost anything else on network tv. Unlike Twin Peaks and some other shows, it actually seemed to have an idea of where it wanted to go and might not have gotten “lost” as some series have.
I think happy town is a good show, grant it yes could have used some work in the beginning. But once it started intriging my interest, it gets pulled….they seem to do that with episodes that show a little bit of creativity, instead they keep the same ER type of shows and how many other stuff that we have seen re-written millions of times on air. Aww well what can you do?
Loved the show…please bring it back. Beats the heck out of all the crappy reality shows.
Great show, loads of potential, murders, kidnaps, twists what more do you want!!!! shame.
wanna know who didn’t see that one coming? people with depth and people with some intelligence. those who watched it and rated it poorly saw the first episode and said “i don’t get it.. so i don’t like it” i want those people to explain to me what kind of mystery would explain everything and answer every question on its first episode. This was a very good show. Happy town was a phenominal well thought out show. Bring it back.
I really enjoyed Happy Town. Every good show seems to be cancelled just when you are really getting in to it. So what happens next??????????????