Project Canceled: "Happy Town"

"Happy Town" is a show that premiered on ABC in the summer of 2010, a mid-season replacement created by Andre' Nemec and Josh Appelbaum, two producers who continue to work on TV shows that just don't seem to strike a chord with audiences, not entirely their own fault either, bad timing, half-baked concepts, awful lead ins, and maybe not the strongest cast seem to work against them. It's shocking how much I actually remember "Happy Town" even YEARS after having watched it, 15 to be exact. But here we are, now if you know me, you know I LOVE a good small town mystery, one of the reasons I was drawn to "Pretty Little Liars" and "Ravenswood", and while those were written for pre-teens and the young adult crowd, "Happy Town" was set for prime time viewing and had a quiet maturity about it that makes this quaint little show kind of endearing.

"Happy Town" tells the story of Haplin, Minnesota, a town known for its bread factory, a small town where everyone knows everyone and everyone's got secrets. During a period of time that has at the start of the series long since passed, the town was terrorized by a serial kidnapper simply known as "The Magic Man". "The Magic Man" had an ability to make people disappear in crowded spaces, and bodies were never found, almost as if the people just blipped out of existence and then leaving those left behind a bouquet of dead flowers on their doorstep. Of course, this is simply the backdrop to our little mystery (which gets solved by the finale episode...we'll get to that), there is much more going on in Haplin, and our key players seem to know more than meets the eye. The series does boast some decent star power; Sam Niel (unfortunately, television cancer), Peter Outerbridge (who just so happens to have one of the best lines in this show) Lauren German (currently and unfortunately starring in "Lucifer"), Sarah Gadon, Robert Wisdom, and the only reason anyone would watch "Angel", Amy Acker.

When I originally watched "Happy Town," I was less than impressed, despite the show making an undeniable impression on me. Once again, this is due to my love of small-town mysteries. But I found the characters to be a bit...stupid, and the plot more or less getting muddled. Now that I've rewatched it, I can honestly say that I enjoyed it for the most part and can identify a few moments where the narrative and the story break down. "Happy Town" was canceled after 6 episodes aired, with the last 2 only being available on ABC. With all that said, let's dive into "Happy Town.";

Project Canceled: Day Break

Sometimes life just isn't fair, not fair at all and injustices abound like in today's case when we take a look at "Day Break" a TV series that came out in 2006 boasting the likes of Taye Diggs in the lead role as Det. Brett Hopper. So what is "Day Break" about? After all the title is uncreative as there are several TV shows and movies that all share that title, what makes this one unique? Well, "Day Break" finds Det. Brett Hopper stuck in a time loop where he's framed for the murder of a District attorney and as he relives the same day he makes different choices and finds that he's in the middle of a much deeper conspiracy. It's basically "Groundhog Day" meets any cop show.  As done as that premise sounds, at least in this day and age, "Day Break" was actually very enjoyable and I'll explain why after the break;

Project Canceled: The River

Oh boy..."The River"...yikes...and I mean that sadly, not scared-ily (because this is a horror show). "The River" premiered on ABC back in 2012 February as a mid-season replacement (proof positive no one had any faith in this show). "The River" was created by Matthew R. Perry (not to be confused with actor Matthew Perry) and "Paranormal Activity" creator Oren Peli, I didn't even have to look at Wikipedia for that because I remember during the ad campaign for "The River" that was one of the major selling points. "The River" is categorized as a supernatural horror/action-adventure series but the conceit of the show is it is somewhat of a show within a show documentary style.

"The River" tells the story of Lincoln Cole, the son of famed TV explorer Dr. Emmet Cole who had a TV series (ala' "National Geographic" meets "Crocodile Hunter") who went missing in The Amazon basin and never returned. Six months after his disappearance, Lincoln and family get a clue that he might be alive and mount a party to search for him.

That's the plot. Despite having a powerhouse of big names behind its production Jason Blum, Oren Peli, and Steven freakin' Spielberg "The River" got the axe after only 8 episodes making the air on ABC. From what I remember after the series' debut there was no buzz about the show whatsoever, none in favor and none against, so that was one strike against it and the next strike was Leslie Hope. Much like Blair Underwood, previously mentioned in my review of "The Event", Leslie Hope is another actor who is considered TV cancer.

Very few TV shows survive in which she is given a main role, the most successful being "24" and that's partly because (spoilers). However, the curse of Leslie Hope seems to be getting weaker considering she's had several appearances on other TV shows which survived. It isn't her acting, she's a fine actress, she just seems to be a lightning rod for bad projects or things destined to fail.  That being said, I did attempt back when it came out to watch "The River" as it was available on Hulu and HOLY CRAP. The 1st episode had reached a level of boredom that I thought was unobtainable by human means.  I remember the 1st episode being boring but for the life of me I can't remember what happened which makes me question as to whether or not I really watched it or not.

I do remember the characters being on a boat, I remember Paul Blackthrone and me going "Hey, that's Stephen Saunders, AWESOME!" but I can't remember much else. The series stars Joe Anderson (who'd later become Mason Verger in the 3rd Season of "Hannibal"), TV Cancer Leslie Hope (Teri Bauer from "24"), Thomas Kertschmann (Max also from "24"), Bruce Greenwood and Katie Featherstone (from "Paranormal Activity"). So in this installment of Project Canceled, we're gonna take a look at "The River". Going into this I'm hoping I'm wrong about this series as it wasn't quite as boring as I remember it...or don't...still not sure which and hopefully see where this project went wrong. So join me as we set sail down "The River".

Project Canceled: Mortal Kombat: Conquest

Holy crap! This is one of those SUPER 90s shows from back in the day! During the rise of "Hercules: The Legendary Journey", "Xena: Warrior Princess", "Mortal Kombat: Conquest" was the epitome of the 90s! From here on out I'll call it "Conquest" for short. "Conquest" came out in in the fall of 1998 after "Mortal Kombat 4", before "Mortal Kombat: Gold" and (more importantly) AFTER "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation". "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation" being completely generous was a box-office bomb, Ed Boon going so far as to say the film was "the worst moment in the franchise's history.". To be completely honest, I enjoy "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation" as an unintentional comedy but I digress. With 2 films under it's belt, a TV show was more than the obvious next step and thus "Mortal Kombat: Conquest" was born.

Prior to "Conquest", "Mortal Kombat" enjoyed a brief foray in the animated realm with the series "Mortal Kombat: Defenders Of The Realms". While I never watched the show completely, I do remember catching an episode here and there, and one of the most notable things about this series (at least to me) is that this show features the first and (only time) where Rain is seen without his mask. "Defenders Of The Realms" lasted for 13 episodes before being canceled. "Defenders Of The Realms" wasn't well received considering the show was animated for children and while having a large child fan base (after all I was 8 when I played "Mortal Kombat"), "Mortal Kombat" is NOT meant for children. The brutal nature of the game could never be reflected in a Saturday morning cartoon style.

"Conquest" was live action and instead of being about Liu Kang and the story we're familiar with, "Conquest" would tell the story of The Great Kung Lao, Kung Lao's ancestor and his journey to become the 1st Earth Realmer to win Mortal Kombat. "Conquest" aired on TNT and was featured after WCW Monday Nitro. "Conquest" oddly enough did enjoy popularity despite in latter years being called a "wire-fu disaster". TNT ultimately made the decision to pull the plug on "Conquest" and from research it looks like it was primarily for budget reasons rather than the over all quality of the show. There are very few things I can speak on authoritatively, "Dragonball Z", Writing, Quentin Tarantino and a few others but "Mortal Kombat" is definitely on that list. I've seen a few episodes here and there but never watched it entirely.

One of my main reasons for avoiding this series is the fear of the brain aneurysm I'd have with the glaring continuity errors of the series fall out of sync with the actual "Mortal Kombat" timeline. As an example, there is an episode titled "Noob Saibot", however we know Noob Saibot wasn't created until the current Mortal Kombat timeline as he was the 1st Sub-Zero, Bi-Han. Bi-Han fought in the tournament during Liu Kang's time and was turned into Noob Saibot after his defeat. The series takes place a good 500 years BEFORE Liu Kang, which would either mean that Bi-Han was never Sub-Zero and always Noob Saibot or that Bi-Han managed to die as Noob Saibot, come back as Sub Zero and then die and become Noob Saibot again. Both are dumb.

Likewise characters like Scorpion are mentioned and while on the surface it may seem like that's no big deal considering Scorpion's a specter, what you're missing is the fact that Bi-Han was a grown man prior to killing Scorpion, which would mean Bi-Han would have to be upwards of about 600 years old for Scorpion to have been killed 500 years prior to Liu Kang. In Mortal Kombat Scorpion's been dead for roughly 2 years before the tournament. So while his being in the series is nice fan service, in actual continuity this makes absolutely NO sense by anyone's imagination. But you see the level of care I have for "Mortal Kombat" so no need to press that further.

 "Conquest" lasted for 1 Season of 22 episodes (a full order) and enjoyed more success in The U.K. & Australia, which is odd considering Australia bans "Mortal Kombat"...and "Power Rangers" for that matter. So for Project Canceled we're gonna dive into the entire series of "Mortal Kombat: Conquest" and see what's what.

Project Canceled: The Event

"The Event"...*sigh*...okay so maybe I've been completely unfair to "The Event" back in the day but man am I NOT looking forward to this. Why? Okay, to be fair "The Event" did start off as an interesting show but ultimately devolved into absurdity and poor construction of plot. This is just going off of what I remember. "The Event" came out in 2010 during TV's "Post "L O S T" Complex Plot" Era where it seemed like every network was trying to capture the lightning in a bottle that ABC had with "L O S T" (this was even played up in the marketing campaign for it saying that if "L O S T" and "24" had a baby it'd be "The Event"). Sadly, "The Event" had two things working against it, for starters it was on NBC and second, Blair Underwood was in the main cast. Despite being religious (I am a Christian) I am far from superstitious and don't believe in ghosts or good luck charms but when it comes to curses, I'm more than a little hesitant to say they don't exist and Blair Underwood is the reason why.

Seemingly every TV show Blair Underwood finds himself in the main cast, it gets canceled shortly after. This list is staggeringly long to be considered a coincidence and he's on a list of individuals labeled "TV cancer". While I'm only half-joking, his track record saw very little success in TV, no clue why that is as Blair is a good actor. "The Event" came on the scene with a marketing campaign centered around a series of "events" that would take place in the show "an assassination plot", "a mysterious disappearance" and "a CIA Cover up" while "events" they are not "THE EVENT" in which the series takes it's name from. This was to build intrigue about the exact nature of the series.

To summarize;

"The Event" is about a series of aliens who crashed on Earth and are currently detailed in an Alaskan prison. While some were detained others integrated themselves into human life. Now those aliens are preparing to takeover the world when news reaches them that their sun is going nova. One man is able to stop them."

That's "The Event" at it's core but the telling of the story involves a President seeking to release to the detained aliens and let the world know about their presence and Jason Ritter's character attempting to find his girlfriend after she's been kidnapped. These events relate to each other and it's the overall conspiracy that drives the show. When it first aired, I was impressed but after witnessing the series as a whole, I definitely flipped due to some inconsistencies I noticed that were just too glaring to ignore. Maybe it was harder to follow because of the nature of the show and having to watch it on a week to week basis that made it seem like the failure it was but I seriously doubt that. However, this is one of those moments where I feel like I was too hard on it and maybe it's worth a gander. Going into this, I'm going to try and find the exact moment when I stopped caring and see if I can figure out an answer to a question I've had since the series aired, I won't tell you what that question is now but I'll address it later on. Needless to say the answer to that question does make up the majority of why this series failed, at least to me. So for "Project Canceled" we're gonna learn about "The Event" and find out where exactly this series failed if at all.