FOX
Last summer (okay, in May), a buddy-cop comedy debuted on FOX. It drew meager ratings for its initial, poorly promoted run, but still garnered an order for several additional episodes, mostly due to the positive response of the people that *did* see the show.
Of course, FOX decided to bring the show back in the infamous Friday 9PM timeslot, where the show died a quiet death.
That show was ‘The Good Guys’ – and it was one of the more enjoyable comedies that I viewed over the past year.
The reason that I will miss ‘The Good Guys’ is primarily because of the work of Bradley Whitford as ‘Dan Stark’. Stark was, quite simply, my favorite character on TV in 2010.
Here’s some of his quotes:
“Whatever hell on Earth we find on the other side of that door, let’s remember one thing, PROTECT THE GRAY TRANS AM.”
“It’s not stealing if they don’t see you take it.”
“If I could make myself less attractive to the opposite sex, don’t ya think I would?”
Sure, his humor (and his mustache) were an acquired taste – but Whitford’s outrageousness coupled with Colin Hanks perfectly played straight-man act were the recipe for a pretty good show.
I know the ratings for ‘The Good Guys’ were abysmal – it only drew (for adults 18-49) a rating of 1.5 for its initial airing. However, the show had excuses. It was a midseason replacement show, debuting in May on Monday nights with minimal announcement. FOX brought it back in September in the dreaded Friday 9 PM timeslot, which is where FOX tradionally kills good shows (see “Dollhouse“, “Firefly“, etc.).
It is clear that the people that actually saw the show liked it. “The Good Guys” is currently showing an 8.6/10 rating on IMDB. I think FOX missed the boat!
If FOX had used a fraction of the “American Idol” promotional budget on “The Good Guys”, it could have caught on. The immense power of that thing called ‘word-of-mouth’ was never given a chance to do its thing.
