Michael Ausiello reports that ABC has temporarily halted production on freshman series FlashForward (and others like The Wrap confirm the shutdown). Ausiello is quick to note the recent departure of showrunner Marc Guggenheim as well as new series lows with the ratings, but ABC is quick to note that the show’s production schedule was designed to accommodate such breaks.
I wouldn’t read anything much into a break like this, especially around Thanksgiving, but I also worry that all the king’s horses and all the production shutdown retooling won’t be able to put FlashForward’s ratings back together again.
This news comes on the heels of last night’s announcement that production on Cougar Town had been shut down temporarily while Courtney Cox attended to some personal matters (that appear to be resolving quickly). While production was halted last Friday, the plans called for the show to be on hiatus this week anyway.
Why oh why did I start watching this show?
Nice Humpty Dumpty lines in there. I re-read it a few times and it brought a smile to my face. Even if, I guess, this is sad news? FlashForward is really struggling to keep my interest. Charlie from Lost is its only saving grace and the writers are making me not care about him.
Sad, but do I care at all? It’s hard to when the show just sorta sits there week after week. From the very first show I was thinking it just wasn’t that great. Maybe I expected too much. This shut down doesn’t surprise me at all and personally I don’t think it really gives the fans of the show much hope for its future. I’ll keep watching but I wouldn’t be surprised if this turned out to be the end of the show in some way or another.
Oh, and Jayme mentioned Charlie from LOST…Doesn’t anyone else find his character just a bit too annoying? I don’t really care for him on FF.
I stopped watching it two weeks ago and I’m really not missing it all that much.
actually i was on eonline and said Cougartown is going back into prouction Monday
Looks like the Cox-Arquette family is moving past the “family matter” that temporarily halted production on Courteney’s new ABC comedy, Cougar Town.
A source close to the series just told us:
“We were down last Friday and are on a scheduled hiatus this week. We’ll resume production on Monday.”
good news so well wount be missing much witch i am happy
Chris, Rboert included that in the post.
heres the reason why
Arquette has been putting in long hours on the set of in an independent film, The Land of the Astronauts, which has been shooting in downtown Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley for the past two weeks. A source close to the actor says filming has been business as usual in recent days with “no apparent” family issues interfering
oh lol my bad
I love this show got scared that it had gotten canceled!
hello more reatily shows
FF has the problem that I doesn’t know what it wants to be. Does it want to be character drama or a mystery drama? Lost managed to balance those two things quite nicely, but with FF you either have a episode with good mystery elements and characters you absolutely don’t care about. Or episodes where the characters start to interest you, but then there is nothing to move the plot forward (see last two episodes.). The show just doesn’t know in which direction it’s supposed to head.
For my personal taste,I hope they finally start investigating those damn towers. Seriously, somebody builds dozens of mysterious black twoers that then suddenly disappear and nobody cares? Come on.
It had potential, but it moves way too slow. Tempo tempo people. You’d think they would get the message.
I just thought i would mention that FlashForward airs episode 10, “A561984″, in Australia, on Network Seven, on Monday November 30th before it airs in the US on Thursday December 3rd. Just thought i would make not of that
It’s also a complete flop here in Australia as well. Gets crushed by the Mentalist and FlashForward’s lead out, Criminal Minds, builds on its Audience substantially and wins its slot.
i quit watching ff 2 weeks ago. i dvr’d it, and half-way thru viewing, i realized i was bored spitless. so i deleted the half-watched episode and never looked back.
Aw, ya got me all excited that they might finally can that “Cougar Town” crap.
That’s too bad, do we know which episode the new showrunner takes over?
The last 2 episodes have been alittle different, so maybe it’s happened.
Totally agree, EVIL. Not interesting enough for the casual viewer, i’m having a hard time watching.
Well geez, if the FlashForward shut-down was built into the schedule and you “wouldn’t read anything much into a break like this” then why even bother to report it?
Because it indicates the network is unhappy with the ratings trend, and the show is extremely unlikely to be back next year barring a significant turnaround.
Personally, the show’s status for Spring is “only watching for lack of anything else”; between Lost, Fringe, and a promising crop of FX shows, there just aren’t enough free hours in the week to watch this (or V).
Glad I never started watching FF. Maybe I’ll catch the complete series (i.e. Season 1 ) during the summer.
Tom: Nevertheless, the break was built-into the schedule.
And as far as not having “enough free hours” I’m guessing that either you don’t have DVR or you watch too much television. Pick and choose!
@vsaint David Goyer takes over as showrunner in episode 14.
I’ll still with FF till the end but the show really needs to learn from Lost (or even 24) how to build in character drama while simultaneously ramping up the tension each episode.
I don’t know why the news makes such a big deal about production shutdowns, especially since these were announced during the holidays when pretty much all shows break anyways. Most shows are at least 6 episodes ahead before they hit air, so this “shutdown” isn’t even going to affect FlashForward at all. As for Cougar Town, it still has 3 unaired episodes (2 in 2009), so this shutdown isn’t going to affect them either.
Thursday night has too many shows and I am putting Vampire Diaries and Bones on my main DVR and FlashForward has been getting saved in another room and to tell the truth, have only watched the first eps of the show. So I am guessing if it goes away I won’t be to upset.lol
I remember being VERY excited about this show…such disappointment.