It had been so many years since I watched anything on network television. In general, I have no patience for commercials. Even though there are just as many commercials on cable, for some reason they are a little more tolerable. Don’t know why that makes sense to me, but it does.

My return to watching network television started back in 2008 when I had moved in with some friends and I began watching Heroes and Biggest Loser. For a long time, those were the only network shows I watched. When my roommate and I moved into our apartment in Tampa, the livingroom DVR was full of scheduled recordings for mostly network shows. The beauty of a DVR is that you can fast forward through ALL of the commercials and get to enjoy just the show. Now, I was watching all the CSI’s, Criminal Minds, Heroes, Biggest Loser, and some other regular network shows.

Since the spring, I started to track what new shows were coming for the summer, and what current shows were returning for the fall. One night, while watching Lost, there was a preview for a show called Happy Town that was going to air during the summer schedule. The image was dark and creepy and the tagline was “Don’t let the name fool you.” I couldn’t wait to see it.
The first episode aired Wednesday, April 28th at 10pm on ABC and I was sitting there, front and center, ready to watch this new show. I didn’t even wait until after it was over so I could watch the episode recorded and be able to fast forward through the commercials! That’s how excited I was to watch it!

At the end of the first episode, my curiosity was definitely piqued. By the end of the second episode, I was absolutely hooked! I watched the first three episodes and the mystery surrounding this town just got deeper and deeper. Even though there are several story lines going on, the entire show is focused on this mysterious character known as the “Magic Man.”

Twelve years ago, in the town of Haplin, Minn, residents began to go missing and the kidnappings were attributed to the Magic Man. When Mr. Grieves (Sam Neill) is asked why they call him that, he replied that this man had a way of making people disappear…like magic. Over the next seven years, residents go missing, including the daughter of the founding family. Then, all of a sudden, the kidnappings stopped. No Haplin residents have been kidnapped for the last five years. Some residents have given the credit to Sheriff Griffin Conroy (M.C. Gainey), but as a newcomer takes up residence in Haplin, things begin to come unravelled once again.

A couple of weeks ago, I’d lost track of time and wound up missing Happy Town and decided that I’d just watch it on Hulu. Imagine my surprise when it wasn’t in my queue. Most network shows post to Hulu within 24 hours, but since this is a show that’s scheduled for the summer I thought maybe these videos would take a little longer before they were posted. No big deal, right? So I decided to go check my DVR and surprise, surprise Happy Town hadn’t recorded the night before. Hmmm, what’s going on? I checked TVGuide.com and sure enough, a new episode hadn’t aired after all.

And then I saw it. It was enough to drive me away from network television once again. After only 8 episodes, ABC had decided to cancel Happy Town. The first three episodes had already aired and the remaining five would start airing again beginning June 2nd.

Alright, alright. I know, I know. It was a show that was only going to run 12 to 16 weeks anyway. The reason it upset me so is that there are so many story lines running and with each glimpse into one of the residents another secret and another mystery jumps out. There’s probably no way that all of the story lines could have been wrapped up within 12 weeks anyway. But if this was going to be a regular show that wound up finding it’s way into the fall lineup, or even if it just continued as summer programming, this was shaping up to be a great show.

Unfortunately, with the cancelling of Ugly Betty and subsequent ending of Lost, viewers probably just weren’t ready to get involved with a new show. Maybe the timing just wasn’t right? Is it possible that the show’s theme itself was too dark? It surely ain’t no family show!

Either way, I’ll watch the remaining episodes and see how it shakes out.

At least I still have Top Chef Masters to watch Wednesdays on Bravo!