Another One Bites the Dust: Several Bite the Dust, Actually, as TV Networks Announced Their Cancellations

I'm not the kind of guy who frets a lot about things over which I have little or no power. More often than it's probably healthy for me, though, I do get ticked off about politics and the this country's direction; however, one of the many advantages of not having produced off spring is I don't have to obsess about their futures nor the futures of successive generations of Russ-inspired progeny.

From afar I am observing what has grown into four generations of my sister's family, and I do have some concerns about the mess with which they will have to deal; but it's not the same as shouldering responsibility for launching my own spawn into what I consider the terrible abyss that I fear will be this society's future. 

Where's Waldo? Four generations of my sister's clan.

Consequently, I get to worry over much smaller issues, such as TV shows I like getting canceled.

The major networks recently posted the 2014-season shows they are canceling. I am not terribly disappointed, but there are a few on the list that I will miss. 

Karl Urban (left) played detective John Kennex. Michael Ealy played the android.

Although it was axed a couple of months ago, “Almost Human” was a JJ Abrams production on Fox staring Karl Urban (the most recent Star Trek Dr. McCoy) as a cop in the future with an android partner. It was fun. I like just about everything JJ Abrams attaches himself to. I'm surprised this show didn't make it.

Johnny Sequoyah was terrific in the role of the gifted Bo Adams in "Believe."

“Believe” is a feel-good show on NBC about a gifted little girl whose mind is so powerful, she can read minds, and move objects. She wants to use her powers to help people – and manages to do just that every episode – but an evil corporation (In Hollywood is there any other kind?) wants to harness her power for the government. A small group of good guys – including her father – spend every episode keeping the bad guys away. This is another JJ Abrams production, which is what attracted me to it in the first place. I like all the good-guy characters in this show. I also like the idea of a bigger, benevolent power. Apparently, I am in the minority.

I've like Elizabeth Mitchell (right) since I saw her in the 1991 Angelina Jolie flick, "Gia."

The third series I will miss more than most of the other canceled shows is NBC's “Revolution.” Fifteen years after electricity simply stops working, a small band of mostly good-guy revolutionaries takes on the central government attempting to reestablish itself. I like the cast, the premise and the writing. I am a fan of Elizabeth Mitchell, who plays Rachel Matheson. She is sort of the matriarch of the clan and one of the people responsible for the lights going out in the first place. I think the producers had enough notice of cancellation that they will bring the story line to some sort of conclusion. At least I hope so. Oh, and it's yet another series with JJ Abrams in the credits. 

Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Dracula doing his carnival barker routine hawking his free energy. Are you kidding me?

Among the canceled shows I am sufficiently interested in and glad to see bite the dust is “Dracula.” What a waste of 60 minutes of weekly air time. It was on NBC, so I wasn't terribly surprised when the story arc was that Dracula had invented a no-cost form of energy requiring no grid that would not only power light bulbs, but replace oil. All of the oil barons ban together to sabotage Dracula's efforts. Once in a while he also bites someone, but that's incidental to the “big oil bad guys” story line. Adding to the story line's credibility gap is that this all takes place in the 1800s. What? Can you say, contrived?

Having never seen "The Crazy Ones," I can only assume this is the core cast.

Another canceled show, and one that I just could never bring myself to watch, is the Robin Williams vehicle “The Crazy Ones.” I typically tune into any new series featuring an alum (Sarah Michelle Geller on the far left in the photo above) from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer;” but I find Williams so creepy, I could never make myself tune in. I have no clue if it was funny or not. I for one won't lose sleep over its passing.