10 New Pilots Headed For A Crash Landing

It’s not very politically correct, but I’ve always been fascinated by dead pools. I’ve never actually participated in one, but there is something about wagering on life and death that appeals to the degenerate gambler in me.Since I’m pretty sure that participating in a dead pool is illegal in San Francisco, I suppose that I will have to live with the next best thing, dead TV pools. Marketing Shift is putting on a contest where they are asking readers to try and pick ten of the new shows, that you think will be off the air by the end of the fall season.

The winner of the contest will be the first person to have all ten of their picks canceled. The winner will receive a little bit of link love from MarketingShift.com, but the loser ends up with an internship at Cat World the CW

If you want to see a list of all the candidates for the pool, you’ll find it on Marketing Shift’s website, but here are my picks for their first annual TV dead pool contest:

1.) K-Ville – I already have a season pass for this, but even though I think I’ll like it, I don’t see it taking off. Hurricane Katrina may be something that people feel connected to, but I don’t think that it will be enough to keep this show on the air, two years later.

2.) Chuck – I caught the pilot on this one and it seems like too much of a niche program to catch on in the mainstream. I’ll be tuning in until they kill this one, but I think this will be one of the first victims of poor ratings and too little patience by the studios.

3.) Pushing Daises – Admittedly, this one looks intriguing to me, but I think that Disney’s family angle will keep this show from being popular. If it was on HBO, I’m sure that this dark comedy would be very successful, but on the Disney Channel ABC it will end up too watered down to survive.

4.) Kitchen Nightmares – I can’t understand why any of the food shows are popular, but this wannna be Wolfgang Puck will go no where with his temper tantrums and scripted outbursts.

5.) Life – This one is just a little too quirky for me to believe that it will survive. If this was on the USA Network or FX, I could see them carving out a niche cable audience, but even NBC won’t be desperate enough to keep this around for too long.

6.) Caveman – This is one of the shows that I’m really looking forward to. The Geico ads were creative to begin with, but I’m also a fan of product placement over the 30 second ads. There seemed to be a lot of initial interest in the show, but I’m worry that it will get pulled after reading some sub-par reviews. I hope I’m wrong about this one, but only think the Caveman joke will go so far with primetime audiences.

7.) Life Is Wild – Between The Office and the upcoming US adaption of Coupling, we’ve seen strong interest in US based versions of UK programmes. Even though this will be an adaption of the hit UK drama Wild at Heart, I’m still not convinced that it will translate well for US based audiences. Since this one will be on the CW, it could always stick around even if no one watches, but I think that the CW can get better ratings with King of the Hill reruns and we’ll see them drop it.

8.) Viva Laughlin – This is another UK based show that is being produced for a US audience. It does have the very popular Hugh Jackman in the show, but somehow I don’t think the US is quite ready for a musical dramedy. I understood when Comedy Central picked Reno to make fun of Cops, but does anyone really believe that people want to watch a show based out of Laughlin?

9.) Samantha Who? – I’ll admit to having tuned into Married with Children episodes just to see Christina Applegate (Heck, I’ll even admit to watching her movie Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead), but now that she is starting to get older, I don’t see this one having the sex appeal to keep bringing audiences back.

10.) Moonlight – I’m a HUGE horror movie buff, but even this one looks cheesy to me. To make matters worse, CBS has put the show on their Friday night spot. This isn’t a bad time slot if you’re Numbers and are appealing to a baby boomer audience, but horror fans tend to go out on the weekends and aren’t going to stick around for something that looks this flimsy.

As a special bonus pick, I’m going to name Carpoolers as the season’s surprise hit. There may be other shows that end up getting better ratings, but I think that this one is going to do much better than the expectations. In about two to three years, it will be just as popular as the Office.

Davis Freeberg is a technology enthusiast living in the Bay Area. He enjoys writing about movies, music, and the impact that digital technology is having on traditional media. Read more of his musings at www.davisfreeberg.com.