Celebrated sci-fi author Harlan Ellison created a show Amish people who learn they're living in outer space, in a ship containing everyone on Earth as they flee an uninhabitable Earth! It's the very ambitious and extremely cheap TV series THE STARLOST, starring Keir Dullea from "2001: A Space Odyssey!"
Harlan Ellison had his name taken off "The Starlost" and replaced with, for some reason, "Cordwainer Bird." Was he right, or was this TV show... CANCELED TOO SOON?
Film critics William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold dissect this failed sci-fi experiment, debate its complex themes and try to endure its many silly, silly, SILLY episodes.
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Dana Delany and Alison Lohman lead an all-star cast in PASADENA, the critically acclaimed soap opera from "School of Rock" creator Mike White! It's a sexy and sadistic series about a billionaire family who cover up murders, sexual scandals and corruption, all taking place in CANCELED TOO SOON co-host William Bibbiani's hometown!
"Pasadena" was critically acclaimed but it was canceled after only four episodes. Film critics William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold have tracked down the whole series to figure out if the show was actually... CANCELED TOO SOON! Check out the episode to learn more about the series, its mysteries, and its incredible weirdness.
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[The following article was sponsored and assigned by our Patreon subscriber Brian Niland. To learn how to sponsor and assign articles to William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold for publication at Critically Acclaimed, visit our Patreon page.]
“Buffy the
Vampire Slayer,” a TV show created by Joss Whedon, based on his
screenplay for a 1992 horror/comedy film, ran from 1997 until 2003 on
various networks, accumulating a cult audience that from a brief
glimpse appears to be even more passionate about their object of
affection than your average cult audience.
My son is 4, which means, as of this writing, I have watched several dozen hours of "PAW Patrol," Nickelodeon's current cash cow. While "PAW Patrol" isn't a terribly nuanced or sophisticated piece of children's entertainment - it's yet another nondescript object in a long, long line of friendly, color-coded crime-fighting animal shows - I constantly thank my lucky stars that, as a parent, it could be so much worse. My son, for instance, could have chosen something truly intolerable, forcing a wedge between us, causing a schism in our lives that would never be bridged until a tearful reconciliation 30 years later.
The Madballs were some of the coolest, creepiest toys on the market in the 1980s. And yet, somehow, they never had their own cartoon series!
It wasn't for lack of trying. This week on CANCELED TOO SOON, William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold dig up not one but two failed TV pilots for "Madballs," including a weird rock 'n' roll anti-fascism parable and an even weirder, MADBALLS-centric riff on "Monty Python!"
Were either of these shows Canceled Too Soon? There's only one way to find out, and that's by listening to this epic new episode!
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Nobody has time to watch everything, but what if you only had time to watch ONE episode of a popular, long-running series? And what if that episode was chosen completely at random?
THE RANDOMIZER is a very special bonus podcast, exclusively for Canceled Too Soon patrons, in which William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold review just one random episode of show they've never seen, guided by a super fan of the series!
In the latest random episode of The Randomizer, Bibbs and Witney are joined by their Patreon subscriber Topher White to discuss "The Vampire Diaries," episode 4.18, "American Gothic." It's a series that William Bibbiani thought was literally about a woman finding a vampire's diary. Let's find out how wrong he was!
THE RANDOMIZER is now available on the Canceled Too Soon Patreon. So head on over and subscribe!
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Photo: The CW
Isaac Asimov co-created a television series about solving sci-fi murders?! Why the heck hasn't everyone heard of PROBE?!
Parker Stevenson from "Baywatch" stars as super-scientist Austin James, who along with his secretary Mickey (Ashley Crow) gets invited to all kinds of strange crime scenes, with killer A.I. elevators, sci-fi writers who get all their best ideas from alien balls of lightning, and hyper-intelligent apes!
How the heck did PROBE get canceled, and was it really too soon? William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold explore this forgotten cult series in the latest episode of... CANCELED TOO SOON!
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When she wasn't bewitching sitcom audiences as the star of the classic TV series "Bewitched," Elizabeth Montgomery took over the "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" franchise! In the failed pilot for "Mrs. Sundance," Montgomery plays wild west outlaw Etta Place (previously played by Katharine Ross) in her very own adventure!
It's a great idea and it's got a great star, but was "Mrs. Sundance" really CANCELED TOO SOON? Film critics William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold unearth this forgotten foray into spin-off territory in the latest episode of the podcast!
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The blockbuster western "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" did NOT become an animated series by Hanna-Barbera, but those real-life outlaws' names are in the public domain, so the studio released a show called "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids" anyway!
It's the umpteenth in a seemingly infinite number of kids shows about teen rock bands with wacky comic sidekicks traveling the world solving mysteries, but "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids" is probably the only team that works for a supercomputer suffering from dog allergies.
The real question is... was it CANCELED TOO SOON? Film critics William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold delve into this forgotten animated series in the latest episode!
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Paul Verhoeven's "RoboCop" is one of the respected and celebrated movies of the 1980s, a film that transformed a potentially silly concept into a sharp, exciting, and completely subversive satire of American capitalistic culture. But although everyone loves about the original movie, and most people remember the two sequels and the remake, not everyone knows there was a short-lived live-action "RoboCop" tv series in 1994!
In the latest episode of CANCELED TOO SOON, film critics William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold take a look back at this ambitious Canadian television show, which tried to adapt Verhoeven's insidiously satirical sensibilities to family friendly television, keeping the show's edge while toning down the violence. Is it as good as the original? Is it at least as good as "RoboCop 2?" And if nothing else, is it better than "RoboCop 3?"
You'll find out in this exciting, all-new episode! And thank you to our listener "Canadian Keith" for donating this series off of our Amazon Wish List!
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Vincent Price and Peter Lorre are two of the most iconic actors in motion picture history, and absolutely legends in the horror genre. So why, oh why, has hardly anybody heard of "Collector's Item," a TV pilot starring Price and Lorre as antique dealers who solve mysteries? Especially since it also co-stars Whitney Blake, the co-creator of the hit TV series "One Day at a Time?"
In this week's episode of Canceled Too Soon, we're going to find out! Film critics William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold dig into the history of this forgotten TV pilot and figure out if it should have gone to series, and whether "Collector's Item" would work as a 21st Century reboot!
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Not every HBO series is a hit! Some of them are "John from Cincinnati," a philosophically and theologically ambitious drama about a burnout family of professional surfers who encounter miracles, and the mysterious and ambiguous title character, and may - or may not (who knows) - usher in a new wave of enlightenment. Maybe. Or maybe it's just weird.
This week on CANCELED TOO SOON, film critics William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold try to decode this bizarre and short-lived television experiment from the producer of "Deadwood," and figure out if it's brilliant, pretentious or both!
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The lovable doggie hero Benji got his own TV series! And for some reason it was a mashup of "Star Wars," "The Fugitive" and Harmony Korine's "Gummo!" It was the ongoing saga of a young alien prince hiding out on Earth, as he's chased by intergalactic hunters and repeatedly rescued by a goofy-looking robot and a plucky homeless dog: "Benji, Zax & the Alien Prince!"
It's one of the weirdest shows we've reviewed in a very long time, so buckle up and start listening to film critics William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold as they unearth this bizarre TV artifact from the 1980s, and decide once and for all if it was... CANCELED TOO SOON!
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Forty-five years before Sam Elliott earned his first Oscar nomination, for "A Star is Born," the perfectly coiffed, deep-voiced movie star played stuntman supreme Evel Knievel in a failed TV pilot!
The year was 1974, and Evel Knievel (in the series) is taking part in a car-jumping Battle of the Sexes, spouting sexist nonsense and dodging explosions and fighting crime. The question isn't whether it's amazing, the question is... was it CANCELED TOO SOON?
Film critics William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold take a trip back to heyday of vehicular heroism in the latest episode of the Canceled Too Soon podcast!
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Before she was an Oscar-nominee, and before she was Harley Quinn, Margot Robbie was a flight attendant trying to find herself in "Pan Am," an ambitious television series about the jet-setting 1960s, from the perspective of the people working in jets. Christina Ricci, Karine Vanasse, Kelli Garner and David Harbour co-star in an international soap opera featuring spies, politics, illicit affairs, secret princes and much, much more.
It was a lot of things, but was "Pan Am" really... CANCELED TOO SOON? Film critics William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold take a trip through this unexpectedly strange series to find out, once and for all, in the latest episode of the podcast!
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Before he was the Oscar-nominated star of "A Star is Born," Bradley Cooper starred in a failed sitcom called "Kitchen Confidential," based on the bestselling nonfiction book by the late Anthony Bourdain. But even though "Kitchen Confidential" had an amazing cast - including John Cho, Frank Langella, Jamie King, John Francis Daley, Bonnie Somerville and Sam Pancake - it was canceled by Fox after only four episodes.
Was "Kitchen Confidential" really... Canceled Too Soon? Film critics William Bibbiani explore what worked about this series, what feels hopelessly mired in the mid-2000s, and what makes us cringe today, in the latest episode of the podcast!
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Julie Brown, Jennifer Aniston, Tom Kenny and Wayne Knight all starred in "The Edge," the most violent sketch comedy show ever made, in which every episode opens with the whole cast getting killed. This topical, raunchy, bloody, juvenile, and just plain weird sketch comedy show only lasted one season, but that was enough for the showrunners to almost get sued by Aaron Spelling for their vicious parody of "Beverly Hills 90210!"
It's a heck of a show to pull out of a pop culture vote, but was "The Edge" really... CANCELED TOO SOON? William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold explore every episode of this fascinating but forgotten series and reveal which gags are still funny and which gags are completely tasteless now!
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In 1991, professional wrestlers-turned-actors Jesse Ventura and Roddy Piper teamed up for a television series, playing professional wrestlers-turned-cops! It's called TAGTEAM, and it's an affable comedy adventure about lovable musclebound dudes who fight crime and occasionally drop pianos out of windows, and onto other pianos.
Tagteam could have been a hit series, but instead it only lasted one episode. Was it... CANCELED TOO SOON? William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold review the failed series on this all-new episode of of the podcast!
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In the age of binge watching, it's getting harder and harder to start watching a popular tv series with just some random episode. But we miss that, so we started The Randomizer, a Patreon-exclusive podcast where we find a long-running television show that neither William Bibbiani nor Witney Seibold have seen, and dump them in the deep end with a randomly selected, late season episode!
Could you believe neither Bibbs nor Witney have ever seen "Psych?" We can't either! But it's true, so they're watching the fourteenth episode from the fifth season, "The Polarizing Express," and trying to figure out why this guy is pretending to be psychic and why Tony Cox is throwing snowballs at him.
Joining us is special guest Joelle Monique, from Pajiba and Paste Magazine! She's here to explain everything Bibbs and Witney get wrong about "Psych," and tell us why this comedy crimefighting show has such a huge cult following. (Follow her on Twitter at @JoelleMonique.)
What are you waiting for? Sign up and give it a listen!
Top Photo: USA
In the age of binge watching, it's getting harder and harder to start watching a popular tv series with just some random episode. But we miss that, so we started The Randomizer, a Patreon-exclusive podcast where we find a long-running television show that neither William Bibbiani nor Witney Seibold have seen, and dump them in the deep end with a randomly selected, late season episode!
Can you believe neither Bibbs nor Witney have ever seen "Gilmore Girls?" We can't either! But it's true, so they're watching the seventh season episode "Santa's Secret Stuff" (because it's the holidays), and our Patrons can listen in as they try to figure out what's going on, who's related to who, and why everyone's talking so fast.
Joining us is special guest Alonso Duralde from The Wrap, Linoleum Knife and Who Shot Ya?, a longtime "Gilmore Girls" fan who tells our hosts everything they get wrong and explain why this show has such a devoted cult following. (Follow him on Twitter at @ADuralde!)
What are you waiting for? Sign up and give it a listen!
Top Photo: CW
