I'm so depressed by this news. CBS has yanked it from the line up after only airing two episodes. Janet Montgomery was wonderful as the lead, and Donna Murphy was so good in her supporting role. It was like Legally Blonde: The series.
Not that I needed another show to watch, but this one stings.
I'm not too surprised--it got zero love from critics and seemed fly completely under the radar with everyone I knew. (I saw Montgomery on some talk show but all they talked about was if it was hard for a Brit to do a Jersey accent, and had no idea Murphy was even in it until a friend told me...)
That said, I always find it kinda bizarre when a show is pulled after just two episodes. Are the advertisement rates that low that they can't at least air a couple moreof the filmed episodes and see if there's any growth? I know networks, increasingly, work with knee-jerk reactions like this, but it just strikes me as impossible to gauge a show after not even airing a full month.
If the show has extremely low ratings and no critical love...where's the hope coming from? And this being CBS, they could probably get more viewers by airing a rerun of one of their awful sitcoms.
I never saw it but Murphy got probably the worst reviews of her career for this show. I'm curious to see her in it after your comments, Whizzer, I love her so much. It's a shame that just about every TV show she's involved in gets cancelled, she deserves so much better.
Plum, who said anything about hope? :P I still think that two episodes is hard to judge if there will be ANY growth (and yeah I won't go on about all the extremely low rated shows that became hits--that was a different era, mostly).
I saw this and it was mildy entertaining. Not something that I would go out of my way to see, but something I'd watch if it happened to be on.
I do think that the day that it was on had something to do with it as well. It isn't called "the Friday night death slot" for nothing. It's not uncommon for shows that are on their way out to be moved to Friday nights prior to their cancelation. Also, it's hard for new shows to find an audience on Friday nights because the belief is that people go out and do other things on a Friday night rather than watch TV. While it is hard for a new show on a Friday night, I am surprised that they didn't give this one more than two episodes to see how things would get.
Eric, I'll be honest - the reason I saw no hope for the show is because I think it's terrible. That doesn't mean I wished it ill or anything, and I am sorry for those folks who are going to miss it.
Ray- How did Donna get bad reviews in this?! Even her big hair and tacky outfits she was the one who managed to ground her family with a sense of reality. I thought she was great!
strummergirl- Yes, I admit to be upset that Mob Doctor wasn't canceled (first). I mean, WTF!
I get that Friday night used to mean death for a show, but who actually watches live scripted tv shows anymore? Even if I happen to be home I wait until 20 minutes into an hour long episode to start watching on the dvr. With Made in Jersey I hit record series and caught up with it on the weekend. Are the networks naive enough to believe people still are watching "live" television, save sports?
Networks pay attention to the +3 DVR viewers now (ie they measure the ratings for people whowatch the show within three days of it airing)--in primetime anyway (don't get me started about how idiotic it is that daytime soap opera ratings, for example, still don't care about DVR viewers, when nobody is home from work to watch them). But they STILL don't matter as much as the normal ratings (partly because advertisers of course realize people rarely watch commercials on DVR).
Made in Jersey though is a show I would *guess* wouldn't hav the huge gain from DVR viewers the way genre shows, or cult shows like all the CW shows (Vampire Diaries and Gossip Girl have massive gains from DVR viewers), and shows aimed at younger audiences do.
Whizzer, Yes, the networks count ratings as if people still watch live TV. This is because the system that they use to check ratings (Nielsen) has yet to start counting DVR viewers or streaming an episode on your smartphone as a viewing of a show. This is something that has caused criticism with the system because it's not up to date with modern technology.
As a Jersey resident (born and raised) - all of the accents were completely wrong. You would think with the explosion of Jersey currently on TV, they would have studied the accents on Real Housewives of NJ or something.
The networks have begun paying attention to DVR (within three day) ratings, as well as iTune purchases... (I'm not sure about the streaming videos on their network websites...). But, yeah, it still doesn't count for as much.
All the reviews I read said Murphy was wasted in this show, but none said she was anything less than her usual brilliant self. Where did you read negative things?
I thought the show was pretty bad. The accents were terrible and nothing like a Jersey accent. Add mediocre writing and, although it may have been too soon, this show didn't have longterm possibilities.
As for the time slot being the issue, that's nonsense. It's between CSI:NY and Blue Bloods, two longtime successful Friday night shows. You can't blame Friday night for this.
The 3 day DVR figures have no bearing at all on if a show gets canceled, this is something that TVbythenumbers have been hammering home for years. The networks sometimes use those numbers in press releases to make it seem like a show did better than it id but thats just to entice people to watch. If DVR counted then many of the low rated shows that pick up big numbers on DVR would be OK and they are not. Only one time i can remember in the past 10 years did DVR numbers seem like they may have had some play and thats when the very low rated Dollhouse was picked up for a season 2, then canceled.
Made in Jersey was OK at best, but numbers that were so bad meant yanking it after only 2 episodes made perfect sense (especially when the thing they are replacing it with will cost them next to nothing to air/make). I agree some networks pull the plug to fast (Eastwick) when shows are showing small signs of life, Made in Jersey was DOA.
It is however very worrying that American TV viewers dont seem interested in watching scripted shows (especially dramas at the moment). Saying that most of the new dramas this year are shocking (Nashville was good). I am not surprised that cable is doing so well when the networks are failing to produce interesting shows
According to the article below, "Made in Jersey" will be airing more episodes on Saturdays beginning November 24 at 8pm. On imdb.com, it says that seven episodes were filmed. Two already aired, so if we get to see five more, I will be so happy! I know it wasn't around very long, but I do miss this show.
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Posted: 10/10/12 at 02:45pm