All Entries Tagged With: "Sara Rue"

When Good TV Show Potential Drowns (or: Saddle Shoe Shows)

Too many TV shows get canceled unfairly. And, for the sake of whatever sanity we all have, I think we should talk about that. This is our therapy session. But don’t lay on the couch, that’s not what people usually really do in therapy. Plus, the couch is covered in cat fur. That’s probably not a look you should go for.

I want to hear your frustrations about the shows you loved and had taken away. And if I don’t mention a show you feel deserves a nod, comment with that as well. These are like, the Oscars for the shows canceled unfairly. (I can guarantee you that would be a much more fun show.)

First, I must tell you a story. In third grade there was this girl in my class named Hayley. She was sort of an oddball. I remember that she had really straight blonde hair that she wore in perfectly parted pigtails. And she wore saddle shoes. No one else wore saddle shoes. No one else was as peculiar as her. If she knew she was viewed as peculiar, she didn’t seem to care.

Or maybe she did. But I thought she was very cool. Not like ‘wow, if I can befriend her I’ll get to sit at the cool lunch table’ (and who’s to say I wasn’t already sitting there, punk) but more like ‘here’s someone who is actually really interesting and different.’ She didn’t seem to have a lot of friends. By the end of the year, I had started to be friendly to her - which has always been difficult for me as I’ve always been a shy person. But we weren’t really friends. We didn’t talk over the summer.

The next year, she had transfered to another school. Gone forever, but memorable. She was interesting in a way that captured attention. (Get ready for the awesome segue!) This seems like a (questionably good) metaphor for TV shows that were great and then canceled before they got a real chance.

What shows in particular might I be talking about? Here’s a list from the top of my head: Miss Match, Firefly, Dead Like Me (kind of got a chance but not really), Veronica Mars (ditto), Joan of Arcadia, Wonderfalls, and Zoe, Duncan, Jack & Jane (ZDJJ).

ZDJJ is what I’d like to talk about. It began in 1999. This is a show that is essentially gone. There are no DVDs you can buy of it. I had two episodes taped, which I faithfully watched far too many times until I lost them.

The show had five main characters: Zoe (Selma Blair), Duncan (David Moscow), Jack (Michael Rosenbaum), Jane (Azura Skye), and Mrs, Bean (Mary Page Keller) as Zoe’s Mom. The first four were

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