TVSquad

Never fear all you wrestlemaniacs. While WWE has abandoned renegotiations with The CW to bring Smackdown back to the network, it has announced that it is already in negotiations with other networks to carry the long-running Friday night staple. Smackdown has delivered solid ratings for The CW (and UPN before it) since 1999, but has at times been an awkward fit for the demographics and perception the network has wanted to put out there.

There are probably two reactions to that headline:

1. No big deal, I didn't really watch that show anyway.

2. There's a show called Inside the NFL?

Actually, there's a third reaction possible, when you realize that the show has been on for 31 years! I had no idea the show was on for that long, nor did I know that HBO has existed for that long. I wonder how many people had cable in 1977?

During my senior year of college, my friend Ken, suffering through a tough job market right after he graduated, worked as a cook in the fraternity house in which he (and I) lived his college years. As he was preparing our lunches and dinners, he'd walk into the living room, see us slumped in front of whatever crap was on daytime TV at the time, and say, "Isn't Montel on or something?"

It became a bit of an inside joke that year. But even fifteen years ago, it seemed that Montel Williams' talk show was always on. But as of the end of this season, Montel is departing the syndicated airwaves, after 17 years.

Well, we all knew it was going to happen -- we were just waiting for the proverbial foot covering to plummet: the Golden Globes award ceremony has been canceled. No red carpet interviews, no pithy conversations between television and movie stars, no close-ups of actors or actresses laughing at jokes that really aren't that funny but seem totally hilarious after a few appletinis.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, along with NBC decided to scrap the ceremony after a boycott threat from representatives of the Screen Actors Guild. Rather than have an empty auditorium, all parties agreed to adopt another approach to the ceremony -- a extremely less glamorous one hour news conference where the award recipients will be named (to be aired at the same time the original show was to be broadcast).

In the wake of reports that The 4400 had been axed, Ausiello over at TVGuide.com is reporting that The Dead Zone was struck a killing blow in that same swing. Two good shows gone just like that. And just before the holidays. Man, that's gotta suck. So it looks like just as Johnny Smith sees that he's still going to have to address that impending Armageddon, the series ends. I always thought the ratings were pretty good on these shows; were they starting to show their age? Losing viewers?

I hate it when a show is canceled between seasons like this, especially when they don't resolve everything in the Season/Series Finale. It leaves a bad taste in the mouths of viewers, and makes them more and more jaded to new shows. Why do you think the serialized drama glut of last season failed so miserably. Because everyone knew we'd never see the end of The Nine.

Since the Season four finale aired, fans (myself included) of USA Network's The 4400 have been waiting to hear the word "renewed." Usually, news of a renewal is announced about mid-season or before the finale. Even if it wasn't the case this time around, we all held hope that USA would renew the popular sci-fi series.

I'm unhappy to report that the cancellation ax fell on the show this week.

I think Jericho fans opened up a Pandora's Box.

Months after that show's fans got CBS to reconsider their cancellation by sending tons of nuts to the network (inspired by a line Skeet Ulrich said in the final episode), Journeyman fans have started a campaign to send boxes of Rice-A-Roni to NBC in hopes of getting them to change their mind (the show hasn't been "officially" canceled, but it doesn't look good).

If you haven't watched the show before, the reason why fans are doing this is because in one episode, our hero Dan Vasser went back in time to 1987 and got trapped in a giant box of Rice-A-Roni.

Kristin from E! Online reports that sources revealed that Journeyman is officially done. That news won't surprise many fans because the cancellation ax has been hovering over the show for a few weeks now. We were first made aware of the possibility that Dan Vasser's travels through time would probably come to a premature stop about two weeks ago.

Last night, Television Critics Association president Dave Walker announced that, because of the ongoing writers' strike looks like it won't be settled any time soon, the association's winter press tour will be canceled. The tour was scheduled for January 8 - 19 at the Universal Hilton in Los Angeles.

Even though the winter tour is less extensive than the summer tour, it is a good time for the networks to give critics a mid-season "state of the network" statement and introduce the stars of their midseason shows. None of the broadcast networks could commit to presenting at the tour, and when the cable nets and PBS started pulling out, the association felt it was best to cancel outright.

As the WGA strike continues, it's not only Letterman and Leno who won't be getting paid. Many shows are already in hiatus or laying off staffers due to production shutdowns.

Show fans are searching high and low trying to find out the status of their favorite shows. Search no more. I researched the web and have compiled the most complete list I can at this time to let you know where your favorite show stands.

I know, I know: 69% of you are saying, "what the heck is The Kill Point?" (50% of you might even be saying, "what the heck is Spike?" I call those people "women.")

Spike has canceled the Donnie Wahlberg drama after only one season. The show actually got decent ratings, especially among guys of a certain age, but the network has decided to go crazy on reality shows instead of investing in original, scripted programming. A spokesman for the network gave this quote: "We are out of the serialized one-hour business. We need programming that we can repeat." Oh, I'm sure TV fans are gritting their teeth over that one.

As was reported earlier this week, the first victim of the cancellation fairies has been claimed: Viva Laughlin. 41 out of 671 of you chose this show, and we've randomly chosen commenter Eric D from those entries. Congrats Eric -- you'll be hearing from us soon!

Now, this is not the end of the contest! As you know, we're extending this on until three new shows have gotten the boot. We've got two more $75 Amazon.com gift certificates to give away. Everyone's once again eligible to enter, following the complete rules after the jump.

Well, that was fast. After an avalanche of scathing reviews (including mine) and extremely low ratings, CBS has canceled the musical mystery drama Viva Laughlin after two episodes. According to the story on Variety's web site, the show will be replaced in its Sunday 8 PM timeslot by The Amazing Race starting November 4 (a CSI rerun will air in that slot next week). No word yet on if the remaining episodes will be shown on CBS' web site, or anywhere else for that matter.

I imagine what happened is that CBS took a look at the low ratings for the show's Thursday premiere (8.8 million viewers) and the even lower ratings for the first regular Sunday showing (a 1.2 rating and 3 share in th 18-49 demo, according to Variety), saw that the quality of the remaining episodes were not going to improve, and decided to bail out. Those are the two factors that usually lead to such quick cancellations, especially to shows that were as heavily-promoted as Laughlin was.

Do you remember the Fox sitcom The Pitts? Of course not and why should you? The show premiered in 2003 and aired for only a couple of weeks before joining Drexell's Class, Costello and Freakylinks in that great big network in the sky.

The series, which starred Dylan Baker (Curt Conners from the Spider Man films) was about a family who had a continual run of bad luck. The series was as funny as the premise, which is exactly why it was cancelled.

For many of us the rite of passage that was Saturday morning cartoons died years ago. The following news just puts a final nail in its coffin.

Last week The CW announced that it was dropping the 13-year-old Kids WB! franchise at the end of this season. Replacing it will be content from 4Kids Entertainment, which has been providing FOX with Saturday morning programming for the last six years. Leasing the space made "the most business sense" according to Bruce Rosenblum of Warner Brothers TV Groups. Despite high ratings, Kids WB! was losing viewers to cable networks like Nickelodeon. Currently, only 10 staffers remain with Kids WB!. A spokesperson for The CW said that they would try to find new positions for these people at the network.