Not-So-Viva Laughlin; CBS Drama-Musical Becomes Fall's First Casualty

Poor Carter Jenkins.

First the 16-year-old Tampa native saw a promising sci-fi show yanked from under him when NBC canceled Surface a few years ago. Now, audiences have been deprived of seeing him warble through Queen's Under Pressure on the musical-that-dare-not-call-itself-so, Viva Laughlin.

CBS has canceled the show after two disastrous airings, calling to mind the last attempt to blend musical and drama on network TV and leaving lots of speculation over why this show tanked so bad.

Was it the idea of trying a musical drama in the first place? Was it CBS unwillingness to really go for the musical format, right down to leaving the musical numbers out of the ads? Was it producer Hugh Jackman's decision to do hardly any press for the show or the soul-shattering sight of watching Melanie Griffith trying to sing a Blondie tune?

The world may never know, as Laughlin becomes the first scripted series to get yanked from the fall schedule (those of you who had Cavemen in the office pools have my apologies). 

But I feel bad that Carter may not get a chance to grab that used sports car he war hoping for; check what I mean by reading my already-outdated interview with him from last week here. Since CBS has marked all its Laughlin clips on YouTube as private already, here's a look at Carter hanging at some press party, so you know who he is...

Comments

[Bear]

Air America has put out a press release saying it will be on WTAN 1340 AM in Tampa. I think this is a bad move for Air America.

WTAN has a tiny signal and can't be heard very well outside of downtown Clearwater.

The owner makes his money off paid programming so he won't carry many prime-time hours. Don't count on hearing Lionel, Thom Hartmann or Randi Rhodes at their regularly scheduled times.

Inevitably, it will fail on this weak signal and conservatives will have a field day saying "See! Liberal talk radio can't work!"

Bad move, Air America.