I remeber it and I thought it was great. why did they stop after only one season? anyone know?
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I'm sitting here wondering what the cause was for canceling the show. My only thought was terrorism *beep* about 'germ warefare' and anthrax frightening younger watchers. ;]
shareProbably the same reason why NBC dropped like a rock in the ratings. This was a very good show, funny and original. I guess NBC just doesn't care for that..After all, look at how they treated the last season of Frasier. Barely a mention of it, and then after the series finale, they didn't even give it a round of re-runs during the summmer, shoving it aside for some asinine "reality" shows.
That's NBC for ya!
Yeah, funny I just remembered this after a couple years - but yeah, what the heck? This was a series both me and the wife loved and whenever mentioned in conversation always a few people voicing positive remarks. We have ~very~ few shared TV interest and this was our show for the year... then it was gone. Of course waaaaayyyy too late now to see any return of this show - but it was definitely one of those shows you that wasn't just a little funny - it was great for tons of laughs... and they cancelled it. Wish I could have seen the backroom reasons for canning it - had to be some wacky Hollywood politics or one of the key actors jumping ship to another series, cause this was not a so-so show that you could see sane person just cancelling. Solid show, with great scripts and great acting.
shareIt was my fault. Every show I like gets cancelled. Sorry to all of you, but I loved this show so I knew it had no future.
shareIf NBC were to give an official reason for the demise of the show (though they never did), it would be because they were being pummeled by ABC's ratings blockbuster "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"
Actually, there were many factors that led to the cancelation of this series. Most notably, it was paired with "Frasier" instead of "Just Shoot Me" (the latter of which was from the same creator as "Stark"). Since "Stark" catered to a different type of audience than "Frasier," the ratings dropped off after "Frasier" ended. Even at that, it still got pretty strong ratings, though when compared to "Veronica's Closet" (which held "Stark"'s timeslot the year prior), the ratings weren't overly fantastic.
Another notable factor in the cancellation of the show were the heads of NBC at the time, though that's opening a whole other can of worms that I'm not up to getting into -- check out the description of the show at tv.com for more on that.
I should also mention at this point that the critics were cruel to the show -- good reviews were few and far between. Oddly, most critics raved about the cast while simultaneously lambasting the series.
But one of the final blows came in January of 2000 when "Stark" won a People's Choice Award for Favorite New Comedy Series. Oddly enough, many of the shows that win the Favorite New Series Awards don't survive to see another year -- and "Stark" was certainly no exception. Three weeks after it won, the show was put on hiatus (meaning it was taken off of the air) for the first of several times. It was officialy cancelled in May, though NBC was supposed to play out the unaired episodes over the summer. After jerking it around -- scheduling it and yanking it several times -- NBC aired one episode with no promotion ("The Pigeon," easily the worst of the episodes that aired), then shelved the other four episodes when it failed to pull in ratings.
There are probably lots of other factors in the cancellation of the show that I'm overlooking at the moment. I know this is overlong, but you asked.
No, it was me.
shareYeah, ledger42, I know what ya mean. I watched it too and find myself in the same situation as you.
shareIt was one of the best TV shows I've ever seen! I still talk about it with people (many of whom sadly never got to watch it)... It was genius!
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i thought it was great too! such a switch of persona for shaloub after 'wings'
plus i secretly enjoyed 'doogie howser' getting traumatized by stark's madness!
it was great!
IS is available on vhs or dvd?
loo
and to think it was replaced by Cursed or The Webber Show
the show soooo should have been paired with Just Shoot Me, and there was a spot open on Tuesdays, on Tueday nights NBC had 3rd Rock, will and grace, and just shoot me, there was a spot there for it, but nbc decided to put it next to frasier, which i guess would be seen as a mark of confidence in it, they did put it in their time slot at the time thrus at 9 30 between fraiser and er when both were still giant in the ratings, (although fraiser was no seinfeld)
i always wondered if the show would have survived if it was paired with another show (shoot me) or if it had been place say in between friends and frasier instead of a second season of Jesse (ugh) i tend to doubt it would hold on to audiences of friends, a lot of shows died after friends, but stark if stark had been held on to would have a great companion piece to scrubs--(which also when it first aired was right after frasier,) its lunatic humor was very much in the same key.
that piegon ep it aired over the summer had wes craven in it by the way!
i know i remember being surprised at its cancellation as well, it did get bad reviews, but it was doing well in the ratings i thought, more then what a normal timeslot hit would do.
oh well, at least both of em went on to good shows--Monk and How I Met Your Mother--both shows not only are great, but they both demonstate how awesome these guys are! so if anything its killing led to better things for the 2 actors at least, what ever did happen to heather page kent though--she was hot from what i remember?
(fancy black french guy) these are my fishes
(neil patrick harris) glad to meet you myfishes!!!
also even though they only ran like 17 eps if even that many, how many of them dealt with Shaloub torturing Harris, i mean think if the show had been renewed, how many more times would they have done that exact same plot???
I attended the Museum of Television and Radio's festival they have every march and went to the one where they had the cast of "How I Met Your Mother" on it. Neil Patrick Harris talked a little bit about Stark Raving Mad and said that it just wasn't a good experience. For him, the comedy never "clicked" in the way he wanted it to, so I guess it's just as well. I loved this show, but on the other hand it's also nice seeing both main actors on different shows (Monk and HIMYM) that have been successful
shareIt is rather disappointing that it was cancelled. I recall watching it and enjoying it, though it wasn't until recently that I saw all the episodes again and realized just how brilliant a lot of the comedy was. (I'm assuming the fact that I'm nine years older now made the biggest difference.) But mbs is right, at least both Tony Shaloub and NPH went on to great shows that have had multiple successful seasons. (I was pretty bummed that NPH didn't win the Emmy for his work on HIMYM this year. He deserved it.)
Grab & Go Girl
I'm pretty sure that Cursed/Weber Show came on at 8:30 after Friends.
The bothersome thing about the entire situation was that the show beat out the competition regularly (aside from the "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire"). The reason was not that it was "bad" in the ratings - but that there was too much of a drop between Fraiser's audience and SRM's. The drop was "just enough" to convince them to cancel the show.
I don't believe the ratings for that time slot have ever been as consistently high since then. The "police comedy" that replaced it was quietly canceled after a handful of episodes failed to attract even a fraction of the viewers that SRM earned.
Who knows if the show could outlast it's initial "arc." I'd mind less if they would just release the series on DVD or provide it on a service like HULU.
"You've shown your quality sir. The very highest."
I dunno ledger42, over the years I've killed my fair share of show prematurely. e.g Brisco County, Special Unit 2, Firefly, I-Man. This one.
As soon as I either saw a RARE promo, or stumbled across it surfing, I loved it. Sitcoms that I actually find funny and worthwhile to watch are few and far between. SRM was definitely one of those sitcom. Clever dark humor. I think that was one of the reasons that NBC seemed bound and determine to bury the show. Someone(s) high up on the NBC food chain had some had some strong dislike for Stark. NBC has always seemed to be rather vanilla in their sitcom lineup.