Bubble Watch 2011: What Shows Might Bite the Dust?

It’s that time of year again when everyone gets nervous that their favorite show that no one watches is going to get cancelled. To help ease (or feed) your fears, we’ve come up with this handy list and scale to help you out. The scale is 0-10, with 0 meaning the show is gone, 5 meaning it’s on the fence, and 10 meaning it’s a sure bet to return. So without further ado, here we go:

Parenthood

What started out as a chaotic, melodramatic show, Parenthood has become one of the best ensemble dramas on TV. It’s no coincidence that its gotten better as executive producer Jason Katims wrapped up Friday Night Lights, and any fan of the football drama that isn’t watching Parenthood needs to do so immediately. That aside, the strong ratings opposite CBS’ popular The Good Wife and the critical acclaim (rare for an NBC drama in recent years) will probably come back for a third season, even though there hasn’t been a renewal yet.

Cancellation Scale: 8

House

Surprised to see this one on here? The show hasn’t been renewed yet as FOX and the show’s studio, NBC Universal are haggling over contracts, but the long running show has ratings to back it up. Ultimately the biggest issue for TV fans is whether or not House will still be quality entertainment for another season or two. I love the cranky doctor as much as the next guy, but after seven seasons, the jokes are stale and the insane medical crisises aren’t exciting. House will be back, rest assured, but maybe its time to start thinking about pulling the plug.

Cancellation Scale: 10

Mr. Sunshine

For a show that most people didn’t like at first, it has steadily improved as its become less and less reliant on Matthew Perry making sour faces and brought the excellent supporting cast into the spotlight a bit more. The show has been ABC’s best new comedy, despite airing opposite American Idol and frequently after low rated Modern Family reruns. This isn’t a perfect show, but there’s potential, especially if its paired with Cougar Town, which shares a similar quirky vibe. If ABC finds something better, it’ll get the axe, but if not, expect to see it on the lineup in the fall.

Cancellation Scale: 5

The Chicago Code

Shawn Ryan had a rough fall with Terriers, and his cop drama on FOX hasn’t exactly done stellar this spring. Still, the show has been slowly getting stronger and has been up against lighter, popular comedies on CBS, and FOX really needs it. The network has had a rough stretch when it comes to new dramas in the past few years, and their two popular franchises in the genre, House and Bones have lost the shine they had a few years ago. It wouldn’t be uncharacteristic of the network to drop The Chicago Code and start fresh in the fall with four new dramas, but the prevailing notion is that unless something better comes along, you’ll hear more ridiculous statements about the White Sox being better than the Cubs.

Cancellation Scale: 6

Perfect Couples/Outsourced

To be clear, Perfect Couples isn’t a good show, but Outsourced is atrocious. The former should be cancelled because it isn’t fresh or entertaining enough to watch week to week, and the latter has spent an entire television season insulting smart viewers and the entire nation of India with jokes about diarrhea and culture clashes. The two shows are the weak links in NBC’s three hour comedy block, but they aren’t necessarily signs that the experiment failed. 10:00 is a good spot for 30 Rock, and renewals for Community and Parks and Recreation have proven they work in their time slots. This is ultimately an issue of quality instead of quantity, but NBC will probably run for cover and put an hour long show back in at 10. Despite this fact, it’ll be nice to get rid of Outsourced and barely noticeable that we’ll be rid of Perfect Couples.

Cancellation Scale: 1

2010 Upfronts: ABC

Upfront week continues with the Post-Lost American Broadcasting Company:

Monday

Mondays will remain exactly the same with a two-hour block of Dancing With the Stars at 8, followed by Castle at 10.

Tuesday

With Lost gone, Tuesdays see the biggest change in the ABC schedule. The night kicks off at 8 with a new show, No Ordinary Family featuring Michael Chiklis as the patriarch of a family that gets super powers. This has big potential to be really really awesome, due to the super hero premise (see: Season 1 of Heroes, The Middleman) and Chiklis, who will undoubtedly do what he does best: be a bad ass. The Dancing With the Stars Results Show will follow at 9, with another new show, Detroit 1-8-7, which has a documentary film crew following cop Michael Scott Imperioli while he does his thing. It’s an interesting take on the crime procedural, and it has potential to either be pretty cool or pretty bland.

Wednesday

The Middle moves to 8 to start off ABC’s comedy night, as network hopes its decent ratings will help the night do better than when Hank led it off. At 8:30 is a new show, Better Together, with Jennifer Finnigan and Josh Cooke as a couple that has been together but unmarried for years that reexamine things when her sister gets engaged to a guy she just started dating. It sounds like a better romantic comedy than a sitcom, and I’m using the word “better” loosely. Modern Family and Cougar Town will again fill up the 9:00 hour before a new legal drama, The Whole Truth at 10. The show has an interesting premise, where each episode focuses on both the defense and prosecution. As with Detroit 1-8-7, it will have to avoid being too generic with it’s creative premise if it wants to compete with NBC’s Law and Order: Los Angeles.

Thursday

Thursdays keep sad doctor shows Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice at 9 and 10, but preceding them at 8 will be a new show, My Generation, another faux-documentary that covers a group of people when they graduate from high school in 2000 and then revisits them as adults in present time. Another interesting premise, but I think it (and Detroit 1-8-7) might be testing the limits the faux-doc introduced with The Office, but it’s worth a shot seeing how it works in a drama and with a plot that would seem contrived without the documentary element.

Friday

20/20 starts off Friday and is followed by a revival of the 2008 FOX show Secret Millionaire, which appears to be ABC’s attempt at jumping on the Undercover Boss bandwagon. At 10 will be Body of Proof, which has Dana Delaney as a surgeon who becomes a medical investigator after a car accident ends her career. As with NBC’s Outlaw, I have a feeling this show probably isn’t very good if its being premiered so late on a Friday night, the least watched night of original shows, but I could be wrong.

Sundays

Sundays stay exactly the same with America’s Funniest Home Videos (Still? Even in the age of YouTube?), Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Desperate Housewives, and Brothers & Sisters.

Other Shows

V will return in the the spring, so expect a countdown clock in the bottom corner of all your favorite shows until then. Matthew Perry returns to TV in midseason with Mr. Sunshine, which has him as a guy that turns 40 and realizes that he’s 40. The good news: Allison Janney and Better Off Ted‘s Andrea Anders co-star. Another new comedy for midseason is Happy Endings, with Elisha Cuthbert and Zachary Knighton as a recently broken up couple that is trying to decide what to do about all their shared friends. The last midseason show ABC picked up is Shonda Rimes’ Off the Map, about an understaffed medical clinic in Africa. It’d sound a lot better if I didn’t know it’d be more about the doctors personal lives and who’s sleeping with who than it will be about the challenges of working in an understaffed medical clinic in Africa.

Other Notes

ABC is sticking pretty closely with the status quo, mostly padding their established blocks of programming, instead of revamping like NBC or simply filling time slots like FOX. No Ordinary Family sounds the most interesting, though Detroit 1-8-7 could also be pretty good. What’s encouraging is that ABC isn’t trying to introduce another Lost knockoff like FlashForward, but rather looking for new avenues to pursue. All in all, not a bad lineup.