MovieChat Forums > Last Man Standing (2011) Discussion > ABC cancels #3 most watched scripted sho...

ABC cancels #3 most watched scripted show LMS, renews much lower rated left wing shows.


Viewers Per Episode

Last Man Standing - 6.41 million (cancelled)
Agents of Shield - 2.35 million (renewed)
Once Upon a Time - 3.14 million (renewed)

"Demo Rating"

Last Man Standing - 1.15
Agents of Shield - 0.74
Once Upon a Time - 0.94

Last Man Standing draws almost three times as many viewers as Agents of Shield despite airing on Friday night, a tough slot for ratings. As a half hour sitcom it's also relatively cheap to make.

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Yet ABC is canceling LMS, starring outspoken conservative Tim Allen, and renewing the ridiculously expensive and laughably low performing AoS, made by unhinged leftist Joss Whedon. It's also renewing Once Upon a Time, the show featuring beloved children's story characters that recently made Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and Mulan lesbians, which only draws less than half the audience Last Man Standing does, and is another hour long show with lots of special effects. This is despite even many of the key people involved in Once Upon a Time being ready for it to end, with the main character (at least) leaving the show and the showrunners making a big "final battle" season finale that was intended to serve as a series finale. Even a lot of what fans it has would prefer that show end now.

Last Man Standing was ABC's second most watched scripted comedy and third most watched scripted show overall this past season, and its ratings had been remarkably stable year over year. Don't let anyone lie and tell you "corporations" only care about "the bottom line". Too many network execs are concerned with pushing a political agenda and looking for flimsy excuses to weed out shows they personally dislike while forcing unpopular liberal ones on the air.

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you could write yourself another post. i am sure that will change their mind.

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I thought leftists were all about "raising awareness".

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"I thought"

you should not put the first lie right into the opening of the post.

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My sarcasm beats your cliched retort, moron.

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"My sarcasm"

as i just told ya: "you should not put the first lie right into the opening of the post."

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ZZZZZZZZZ....

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🇲​🇪​🇲​🇴​🇷​🇪​🇽ZZZZZZZZZ....

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(1430)

Busy, busy.

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lolz

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So we'll just ignore that abc doesnt own last man standing, and that a show gets more expensive to make the longer it goes on? Fox make it, why dont they show it if its so cheap to make and ratings juggernaut? Of course that might not play into the "Im a victim" narrative you people love to push.

Republicans are such morons. You act like pissing on veterans is fine, like making rich people richer by taking form the poor is fine and then wonder why people dont like you. morons lol

And before you say anything, yes that the group youre in. You can foam at the mouth saying it isnt all you like, but thats what republican politics is all about. Bitch and moan about big government than flood it with candidates that will screw over everyone for the elite few. Mitch Mcconnell who regularly uses veterans benefits as a political tool to get what he wants for his party. Trump, who lies his ass off any time he opens his mouth is your hero. Even though hes already fucked everyone who voted for him with that ridiculous healthcare reform. If you think you arent getting fucked by that you didnt read it. And hat worse is that even though hes a coward, a spineless spoiled child who will screw over anyone, youll all vote for him again. As I said, morons.

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Well Hillary,who also "lies her (fat) ass off every time she opens HER mouth" is YOUR heroine. So pot, kettle,black, so until you have a coherent argument, shut the frack up! lol

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No she isnt, and thats the problem with all of you morons, you assume bullshit to fit your biased view of the world. Hilary or trump are two sides of the same coin. Next youll be wanting to call me a bernie bro no doubt. Youre arguments at this point are nothing more than repeated bullshit that been plastered all over the internet by both sides of left/right divide for god knows how long. Get a new fucking script moron.

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A "bernie bro"? I'd never assume you were THAT stupid without concrete evidence.

But calling me a "moron", well that kinda fits the leftwing narrative. Sorry you refuse to think for yourself, sorry that we have a crappy government no matter who is in power, but I do wish you well. Peace be with you!

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YOU, are a moron and not because of this. Mr homophobic bigot that gets all pissy just because he wants to be a she like it makes any difference in your life what other people do. On the internet getting pissy about all the trans people on the planet.

AS for the left wing narrative, your right. The left is no better than you are. They are morons also. What you have to get through your tiny little brain is that not everything in this world is black and white. What you all needed to do was change your system. Get out of the two party mind set. Get out of the 200 year old way of doing things that doesnt work so well anymore.

But you wont. Now of you will. None of you will do a god damn thing. Even the moron left hilary fuck nuggets wont do a god damn thing about the college they feel robbed them of their choice. Theyll just sit and do nothing until it happens again then start moaning just for the sake of moaning.

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So if not Hilary or Trump, who should we all have voted for? Gary Johnson? Jill Stein? Boycott the election? Trump was a gamble I was happy to vote for given my other options.
By the way I love the blanket statements, its almost like you know every single republican out there.

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I dont have to know every single republican out there, I only have to know who you associate yourself with. You love doing it to muslims, not so nice when its aimed back you is it? Youre a republican there for you are the very worst that group has to offer. Cant change your logic now just because you dont like it.

AS for who you should have voted for. What difference would it make? No matter who got in they be countered at every turn by the corrupt house. Look at obama. Not the best president to be sure, but how much of that was down to republicans refusing to do their jobs? Instead of working with the man and trying to work something out for the good of the people they just downed tools and gave the finger to the country just to spite the black guy they didnt like. And then you all voted for them again? What other word but moron would you use for that type of person?

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I'm not a republican thank you very much, I'm a registered Independent. But go ahead and make more blanket statements of hatred, and keep on judging people you don't know based on what the media tells you. Just the same when a republican talks about how "all liberals ______", keep it up man, that we we all win.

I don't hate muslims by the way, but radical islamic terrorism is global threat. There's more than just a few "bad hombres" in that group.

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Actually no, there is only a few bad hombres in that group. Theres just as many christian terrorists as there is muslim ones. But thats not really the point is it?

As for you being independent, dont make me fucking laugh. You voted for trump and he was not the best option there was by any stretch of the imagination. But you keep telling yourself whatever you need to. I suppose you need to do something to sleep at night knowing you sold out your fellow countrymen to an ego driven child with all the common sense of a particularly stupid goat.

As for liberals, what said about them is true. they are (fill in the blank). they talk on end about equality yet have no simple grasp of what that means. What they really want is something they hate, theyre just too stupid to see it.

Democrate or republican, it doesnt matter. Two sides of the same coin. Party comes first. the rich and the elite come first. neither are a party that fights for the rights or the well being of the people. Voting for any of them is what makes you a moron. Oh and its not hatred, its pity. I pity you and everyone like you that wastes their energy on a small group of people that care nothing for them outside of a vote every 4 years.

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Just as many Christian terrorists? Any credibility you had goes out the door with that statement of obvious negative bias. Maybe a thousand years ago. There have been dozens of terror attacks perpetrated by Muslim extremists in the past year alone. Please name for me a Christian terror attack in the past decade. There was maybe one idiot who tried to blow up a planned parenthood (which is obviously wrong) but other than that I can think of any. I'd love for you to educate us on how Christian terrorism comes remotely close to Muslim terrorism (in the 21st century).

Now you keep harping on about how awful Trump is but you're yet to give me a viable alternative. You say "he was not the best option there was by any stretch of the imagination", ok fine, who was better? You can't (well you can I guess) talk shit on everyone who voted Trump and say that I sold my countrymen out without giving me a better alternative. The way you're talking it sounds like you didn't vote at all, you didn't like your choices so you let me and everyone else pick for you.

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I guess if you dont see it on Fox News, it never happened, huh? Must be nice living in trump land with your head tucked nicely up your ass.

1. The Army of God
2. Eastern Lightning, a.k.a. the Church of the Almighty God
3. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)
4. The National Liberation Front of Tripura
5. The Phineas Priesthood
6. The Concerned Christians

I guess it's also only a terrorist attack if it's against the USA too, huh? Never mind the daily shit going on in Africa every day in the name of Christ. Never mind the countless Muslims (men women and children) butchered by Buddhists in Myanmar. No, only Muslims terrorise. Muppet.

As for who you should have voted for, I think my point has few over your head. Not surprising being the fucking moron that you are. The time to act wasn't in November it was years before that. But you didn't, none of you did. You all let your system be corrupted by greedy war mongers and now you have the cheek to say there was no choice? Maybe not re electing countless corrupt politicians. Maybe you should have a memory longer than than a fucking gold fish? The amount of bullhsit perpetrated by wankers in the government is ridiculous, and even more ridiculous that you all ignore it because it doesn't fit your bias. You get told anything you don't agree with and you start calling people names. Well, suck a fucking dick mr bellend. You are your own problem. Both sides are just as bad as each other.

You think you lead the world, sorry but we all think you're fucking idiots. Like a panda too to lazy to fuck to save its species, you lot choose a side of left and right and then bury your head in the sand. Too fucking ignorant to understand the rest of the world isn't like you nor does it want to be.

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I've ignored most of your insane rants, but this caught my eye. None of those "Christian terrorist" groups are international terrorist movements (except arguably the LRA, which is still just a local army in a civil war and operates across a couple of borders as armies in that situation tend to do), most or all of them are actually political rather than religious in nature per se (anti-abortion, fighting against a regime for democracy, fighting for marginalized ethnic groups), some of them are denounced as heretical cults by Christians (e.g. Eastern Lightening in China), the Phineas Priesthood doesn't exist (it was like four or so guys who were arrested and convicted in the 1990s), and The Concerned Christians is a fringe but harmless group that hasn't committed any violence.

These groups combined haven't committed violence on the scale of any of the major Islamist terrorist groups. Whatever blog spoonfed you that list is really lame. Remember, Islamism's goal is a global caliphate, not just regional or single issue concerns. They're militant theocrats slaughtering on a vast scale. They enjoy the sympathy of millions and millions of Muslims, and virtually EVERY Muslim country imposes some degree of Sharia law, unlike Christian nations that have established religious freedom.

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Well, that was quiet the pile of shit. Congrats.

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What, no deranged paragraphs of BS? Just one line of projection? You've practically been rendered speechless.

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Yeah, that's what it is. It's most definitely not that there's nothing left to say. The information is out there for all to see. Sorry you and your fuck nugget buddies are too dumb to look to more than Fox News for your information.

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Unimpressive reply. I'm the only one who actually posted information on the above groups. You just copy pasted a list from some idiotic blog.

Only a drooling moron would deny that international terrorism is overwhelmingly Islamist in this era.

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Except that no one was talking about international terrorism. You came up with that. Remember the guy said there was NO Christian terrorist groups in the last ten years. I named 6.

You then went on to bring up sharia law, like that's gonna win the argument. Sorry darling, but no. Some Islamic countries are a hell of lot better for women that your good ol US of asshole.

But fuck it, international Christian terrestrial group? Easy, the United States of America. Being working around the world for the past 100 years destabilising nations and installing puppet dictators. And all in the name of the lord. George bush even went to Iraq with gods name on his lips because dudes from Afghanistan flew a plane into s building. Oh no that's right, there were wmds there. Invisible wmds.

So there ya go, ya jumped up little cunt. You're the fucking Christian terrorist of the world. Bombing the fuck of anyone your Saudi masters tell you to with a fucking Xbox box controller.

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No, moron. You said...

Theres just as many christian terrorists as there is muslim ones.

(sic)
LOL! Not even close. International terrorism is relevant because it's bigger and more serious than local parties fighting over local concerns. And you didn't even name 6 "terrorist" groups. You listed a few groups dubbed "cults" by the Chinese or other countries, or a few small fry people arrested decades ago who don't even still exist as a group.

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And what does that have to do with what I said? Are you brain damaged in some way? Do you think "Islam" is a terrorist group? Lololol I know you think there's "millions of Ismail terrorists" but you know there's more than one Islamist terror group in the world right?

Damn dude, you could get anymore dumb if you tried huh? Since when did "more than one" mean "international"? Seriously, you must be huffing a shit load a glue.

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Read more. Embarrass yourself by trying to write less.

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Some Islamic countries are a hell of lot better for women that your good ol US of asshole.

LOL! You suck at trolling, rent boy. A good troll throws out a bomb or two, sits back, and enjoys the fireworks. You've vomited so many paragraphs of BS here that you're typing more than anyone else. You're the fool dancing for our amusement.

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See, now I know you're just just a Fox News fuck tard with no clue what the outside world is like. I'm not trolling you, you clueless fucking muppet.

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you're just just a Fox News

Ha Ha, with mindless lefty bottomfeeders "Fox News" always gets tossed out as a last resort at some point, even if it hasn't been mentioned yet and has nothing to do with the topic.

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Except that it was mentioned, so ya know, suck a dick

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Mentioned by you, halfwit. No thanks, but you can probably find some guy willing to do it.

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"I've ignored most of your insane rants, but this caught my eye. "

dude, you replied to every single one of his post.

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No I didn't. He had that extended exchange with the other poster above. I only jumped back in at the end.

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If you're going to call people "morons" would it be too much to ask that you spell and punctuate at a "C" level?

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Actually, moron, I stopped reading your partisan drivel after the first paragraph where you implied that Last Man Standing, a half hour sitcom, was "expensive" to make compared to some of the shows being renewed, like the hour long special effects stuffed dramas with far lower ratings cited in the op. As for Fox, they notoriously don't mind low rated shows or apparently want high rated shows. Fox sucks. It's in the gutter. Last place. And they seem cool with that. That's why they refuse to cancel garbage like Family Guy and the Simpsons (well they were once great and became garbage years go) that only draw a couple million viewers. Last Man Standing would probably be Fox's highest rated scripted show by far, but then Fox entertainment is run by leftist douchebags like ABC is.

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lol what a bike end you are. If the show is cheap and is a ratings juggernaught, why cancel it? Because Tim the toolman is right wing? Funny, he's been right wing and taking regular shots at the left and shilary for 6 years. I guess jokes about her being a war criminal are fine, but supporting trump is too much?

Why isn't the middle gone? Patrica Heaton is right wing as fuck regularly spouting off on Twitter about birth control, Obama and taxes etc etc. Why isn't she sacked? Sorry to burst your little "I'm a victim" bubble but you're just going to have to deal with the fact your lefty caricature bashing show is gone. Too sit for Fox to even sniff at. Fox is run by leftys hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Look, I know you're all pissed off because you can't wear a belt and tie at the same time, or you turn into sausages, but that's really no reason to throw your toys out the pram

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That reply is more like it. I was disappointed in the one you posted above. This shows you're back to putting more effort into being the drooling, moronic douchebag you are.

Oh gee...what could have happened in the past few months...say from November to January...that's different than the past several years, and might have sent leftists into insane meltdowns and irrational hostility? I don't know. Oh wait.....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avcyqp_10Yk


Of course that didn't start the purge of conservatives from public life, which is why you can only name one other show, but it seems to have accelerated it. There are also rumors of Iger in particular pondering a presidential run, and Disney is certainly becoming even more partisan than usual.

PS - While I don't watch The Middle, I've heard it's not explicitly political. Heck, even LMS wasn't right wing so much as a show that aired both liberal and conservative views. That's unacceptable to an intolerant snowflake left that's afraid of conservatives being depicted as likeable or "normalized" when they're stupidly trying to brand them as "Nazis".

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So it had nothing to do with abc not owning the show and only making money from the ad revenue it brought in which wasn't much because the audience was mostly over 50. It was because the show was in its 6th season which is when contracts are renewed and the cost start to go up. It wasn't because the on,y one making any real money was Fox. No, it was just because Tim the tool man supports trump. Apparently he can rip into shilary as much as like about Benghazi on the show, but show support for turn outside of the show and it's a deal breaker? You don't see how much your reaching? Of course jot, look at the muppet you follow. The poor little rich boy who cowers behind big words and little actions. With his tiny little hands just dying to feel up his own daughter. What a hero.

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It scored higher in "the demo" than more expensive shows ABC renewed, moron.

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It doesn't matter if they don't see all the money, moron. Fox saw all the money for the show, abc saw only the ad revenue. Do you get it now you dumb fuck? Increase in costs + lower income = cancellation.

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Do you have a reading disability? Your writing obviously sucks but it's looking like you can barely even read.

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Dallas:

He for damn sure is, but these silly trumpfheads who voted for him think he actually cares for them, when he could really give less than a damn about them.

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What's funny is that you and that "Dallas" moron are too stupid to realize that coming and here whining about Trump and Republicans in the same thread where you're trying to argue that network decisions have nothing to do with politics only undermines your case. You could have helped yourself somewhat by pretending to be conservative, though that would have been dishonest. But you at least could have refrained from attacking Republicans in this thread, lol. You're too deranged to do that though, discrediting yourself (your feeble, easily refuted arguments also do that).

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http://tvline.com/2017/05/10/last-man-standing-cancelled-abc-no-season-7/#comment-list-wrapper

May 11, 2017 at 10:12 PM

Some FACTS in all of this.

LMS was considered on the bubble for many years. It did not even seem like it was going to make it the first year or two. But it did move along until syndication. The goal for any show these days is to make it into syndication, and LMS made it there. IF a show is produced by the network studio, there is more of a likelihood that they will keep it around another year if it is on the bubble. LMS was a Fox produced show, and there was a dispute over the money, basically. The same thing happened to Mike and Molly.

Now as far as the other arguments. You all do realize that Patricia Heaton is a very outspoken conservative and her ABC show is going into its ninth season? You also do realize that The Real O’Neals, whose creator is a gay rights advocate, was also canceled? The truth is that LMS was expendable because ABC was not willing to take it one more year. It had a decent run of six years. Family Ties, which featured a conservative main character in the age of Reagan, was on for seven seasons, one more year than LMS. Tim Allen said something very insensitive a few weeks ago. However, unlike what happened with the Robertson family, ABC did not comment on this, Tim Allen was not made to apologize, etc. There was some well-deserved criticism about his comments comparing Hollywood to the 1930s, but it did not cause a firestorm.

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Sorry, that's too much logic for this guy to take. It doesn't fit with his "I'm the victim of lefty propaganda" spiel. He doesn't seem to bother about other factors like ownership, money coming in from syndication, ads international etc etc. All that money goes to Fox, not abc. He ignores this and still compares it to abc make shows that they will get all the money for.

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It was "on the bubble" because conservative shows have to meet a higher threshold to keep from being cancelled by leftist network execs who personally dislike the shows anyway.

I'm the one who presented facts in the op. You're presenting baseless spin prose, though I'm not sure why you care enough to shill for ABC. LMS enjoyed strong ratings. It wasn't kept this long for syndication. As other misguided spinmeisters have pointed out, ABC doesn't get LMS's syndication payments. But syndication isn't necessary to make money on a show, which is why it's lasted on a far left network as long as it has.

Patricia Heaton's show isn't political. LMS was (though in a fairly balanced way). Leftists don't want conservative characters or views "normalized" or presented in a likeable way, so they seek to marginalize and stamp them out wherever they can.

The Real O'Neals, a vile anti-Christian show, only averaged 3.9 million viewers in its first season, was renewed, and fell to around 3 million flat this year, less than half what LMS is drawing. Family Ties was made by liberals who were trying to mock Reagan, but did so ineptly since viewers identified and liked the Michael P. Keaton character better, so you even get your basic history wrong.

Tim Allen got his show axed without a negotiation, so they just skipped the usual "firestorm" phase of attacking conservatives. Meanwhile liberals say all sorts of truly hateful things or condone violence (e.g. Judd Apatow, Spike Lee, Madonna, Tony Kornheiser) without any media backlash whatsoever. Even disgusting hack Colbert didn't receive much backlash or any discipline from CBS. He certainly wasn't fired like iconic Monday Night Football intro star Hank Williams Jr. was by Disney for his Obama comments in an interview.

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Blah blah blah the moon landings were faked blah blah blah.

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You probably actually believe that, and that 9/11 was an inside job, JFK was killed by a right wing conspiracy instead of left winger Lee Harvey Oswald, white cops are systemically murdering black men, the CIA started the crack wave, the US government invented AIDS, etc..

But I cited facts, not conspiracy theories. Political bias within an organization or profession isn't a conspiracy theory. In this case it's not even really disputed by knowledgeable liberals.

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krl97a:

Keep believing that "LWS was fired because it was a right-wing show" bull****. I already posted somewhere on this board why it was canceled---that happened because ABC dosen't own the show, and they weren't making a profit from it---the company who actually owned the show were. Also, The Real O'Neals got canceled, so no point in you whining about it. And I rarely hear liberals condoning any violence in the media without getting any kind of backlash,so stop lying. And what Colbert said wasn't anywhere near as disgusting as the nasty, hateful BS that stupid conservative loudmouth suck-up ted nugent has said about liberals over the years. Your "conservatives are being persecuted because they're conservative" paranoid victim fantasy is just plain BS. Your show got canceled--just get the hell over it, geesh. I've seen many a show I liked get canceled----hell, American Crime was one of the more liberal shows on air (and one of the best ones) and it got canceled after three seasons. So did 24:Legacy, which I thought was a good show with the potential to carry through to another season. And Colbert did receive a lot of backlash, but it certainly wasn't worth kicking him to the curb for. Shut up with your whining---the reality is, most sitcom are lucky it they even make it to the third year mark, let alone the sixth. It had a good run. Also the show was on long before trumpf got elected, so its popularity had nothing to do with him anyway. It's not even about him.

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sleepingtiger, did you really come back after a month just to post that whiny screed repeating crap I've already debunked on this very thread? Check out the Real O'Neals' ratings, moron. No one said low rated liberal shows don't often get cancelled (though not always, as the op proves). LMS was one of the highest rated shows. Big difference. Everything else you said is wrong too. Setting aside the facts that Nugent is aberrational on the right while violent rhetoric and action on the left is common, and that after this latest leftist terrorist attack Nugent actually said he had reevaluated his own rhetoric and decided to tone it down (more responsible and mature than any Democrat I've heard since this shooting by one of their own), Nugent never created a realistic, severed, bloody Obama head and held it up ISIS style like Kathy Griffin did for Trump, he isn't sponsoring a play depicting Obama or Clinton being brutally assassinated, nor to my knowledge has he attacked people's kids. Nugent's also not a politician. You've got Tim Kaine, Clinton's VP candidate, telling his base things like "Fight In The Streets" against Trump, and Democrats calling themselves the "Resistance", embracing the language of war in an attempt to keep their voters ginned up in a perpetual frenzy of hatred. BTW, 24 Legacy was one of the few shows on the air with a conservative co-creator (Manny Coto).

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http://forums.previously.tv/topic/57325-canceled/?do=findComment&comment=3277146

I think the demo has not been a working piece for some years and other networks have decided to leave that thought process behind. Since it has become less and less relevant. As for when they tried to change things to All in the Family was not a smart move. In fact many critics and fans of season 1 thought the shift in the tone and with the actors was too much when season 2 started and the fact that when season 3 started, they started cutting down things hugely. However, every time they had to bring up something political between Mike and Ryan and making Kristin, dumber and dumber along with Vanessa. Those episodes were the lowest and most criticized episodes because they showed Mike to be some big baby and Ryan having no brains for even the most smallest things. Plus, in season 3 they started just dropping storylines and characters and putting characters in very ridiculous story lines. I think Vanessa's role from being smart, PhD who worked a very good job and wasn't ashamed of her life. Was turned into a person who had to settle all arguments, jumping on Ryan's side (because he was the baby daddy). To acting like the politics of teaching were horrible and then being out of a job not once, but twice and then Mike hating the fact that Vanessa wanted to have her own space and tutoring business was such a No No. Plus Mike going from loving holidays and events to hating them and wanting to kick everyone out of his house. Ryan magically being from Canada or his father returning, then dying. The wedding we never saw, Kristin wanting to be a doctor, but then thought shots give children autism and then dropping out to run a food chain for Mike. Ed making a big deal of wanting to get married again, but only to divorce him again because the TPTB couldn't figure out what to do with his "wife" after they married them over the summer. So they dropped her from the show and with Chuck's wife becau

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I get that you personally had problems with the show, but the point here is that it was still drawing about 6.41 million viewers a week, most of whom presumably did like it (not that it matters).

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krl97a (54):

The real reason LMS (which I rarely watched---those type of traditional family shows don't interest me any more, because I already grew up watching a whole bunch of them) got canceled was due to a variety of reasons---the main one being economic. The article here explains all that:

https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/5/12/15628038/last-man-standing-canceled-tim-allen

Tim Allen’s sitcom Last Man Standing has been canceled, despite solid ratings. ABC

It’s not often a network cancels its second most-watched comedy in a sudden, surprising move. Usually, if a show that important to a network has to go out, it’s granted some sort of “this will be your final season” reprieve. (Think of how CBS handled the end of How I Met Your Mother in 2014, for instance.)

Yet such a scenario has unfolded — surprising most industry observers (myself included) — with ABC’s Last Man Standing, a Tim Allen star vehicle that airs Friday nights and quietly pulls in more total viewers than any comedy on the network not named Modern Family. Indeed, it’s ABC’s third most-watched scripted show, period, after Modern Family and number one series Grey’s Anatomy. (Deadline has more exact viewership data, should you so desire.) And yet the network canceled it after its sixth season, without even a planned series finale.

The cancellation has left some conservative pundits wondering if Last Man Standing was canceled because Allen himself is conservative, and his character on the series is as well. (The other characters around him lean more toward the moderate or liberal, making Last Man Standing sort of a modern update of All in the Family, where everybody seems to have gotten their talking points from cable news.)

Is that true? It’s impossible to say. There are a ton of business reasons to cancel Last Man Standing, and the show’s much-vaunted viewership stats are less impressive than they seem when you dig into them. But still. Most renewal predictions had Last Man Standing safely clos

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(continued)

safely closing in on a seventh season.

So was it Allen’s conservative lean? Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe? But probably not. Here are five other reasons Last Man Standing might be toast.

1) It’s old

After season five, if a show isn’t a blockbuster (like The Big Bang Theory or The Walking Dead), every additional season becomes harder and harder to procure, even if the ratings are pretty good on the whole.

The reason is simple — actors, writers, technicians, and other people who’ve stayed with the show for its full run begin to earn pay bumps, usually seeing solid raises in seasons six and seven especially. (You’ll often hear about studios agreeing to new “two- or three-year deals” with certain cast members post-season five, and that’s often to lock those cast members in at a rate the studio can live with for future seasons.)

This makes a lot of sense. Traditionally, seasons four and five are when a studio starts to make back the money it’s invested into a series, from syndication and other means. And Last Man Standing has both lucrative syndication and cable rerun deals with various networks, which have paid off in solid ratings that fed back into the main program (which actually saw viewership increases in season six — almost unheard of).

But it also probably caught the show in a weird Catch-22. Last Man Standing was successful — but not successful enough. It was doing well enough to justify better pay for the cast, especially, but it wasn’t doing well enough for the studio to demand more money from the network (more on this below).

Finally, Tim Allen himself has always commanded a solid salary — which usually happens when a former TV star or someone who’s gone on to movie success (both of which apply to Allen) returns to TV — so Last Man Standing was already an expensive show. This only compounded that problem.

2) The people who watch the show are also aging

Though Last Man Standing posted total viewership increases, its ratings among younger view

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(continued)

Though Last Man Standing posted total viewership increases, its ratings among younger viewers actually decreased very slightly, to the tune of 4 percent. And those numbers were never all that great to begin with. The show’s viewership had always trended slightly older than networks tend to prefer.

That’s because slightly older viewership makes a show less valuable to advertisers on the whole. (Advertisers pay a premium to reach viewers under 50, as it’s believed that those viewers are more likely to switch up the brands they buy.)

Again, this wouldn’t be a problem if Last Man Standing were a blockbuster hit, but it was simply a solid hit. So its inability to gain more younger viewers when it was gaining more viewers overall stood out even more.

3) ABC doesn’t own the series

If there’s a main culprit I’d point to as the reason for Last Man Standing’s cancellation, it’s either the show’s age or its ownership. ABC isn’t the studio behind Last Man Standing. Instead, it licenses the show from 20th Century Fox, paying a per-episode fee to the studio. Consequently, ABC gets to keep the bulk of the money from advertising.

As a show gets older, the studio typically demands a higher and higher licensing fee from the network — the better to recoup more of its production costs. This happens because anytime a show has run that long, it’s presumed to be a hit and therefore valuable to the network. (Modern Family, which is also produced by Fox, has always run on ABC without apparent major renegotiations of its licensing fee, which suggests ABC is happy to pay a larger one. But that show is also a bigger hit.)

This doesn’t always happen with a show in Last Man Standing’s position, and ABC has, indeed, negotiated its licensing fee down in recent seasons. But according to the Deadline report, it didn’t even attempt to negotiate with Fox this year.

There’s one big reason this might be the case: Since ABC doesn’t own the show, it doesn’t get any of the show’s

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(continued)

ancillary revenues — from streaming services and syndication and cable reruns and international broadcasts. Those all go to the studio, Fox. ABC pretty much just collects ad revenue at this point.

Thus, ABC has no incentive to keep making more episodes of the show from a financial perspective, where Fox has huge incentive to do so. It’s easy to see how that situation could have grown unsustainable.

4) ABC is running out of room in its primetime lineup

The biggest news out of the TV industry this week has been that ABC has closed a deal to bring back American Idol, which last aired in 2016 (and on a different network, no less). Since the network has seen major success with The Bachelor and (occasionally) Dancing With the Stars in the 2010s, it makes sense for it to add another venerable reality franchise to its docket.

But Idol takes up a lot of space. You need two hours for the performance show, then at least 30 minutes on another night for the results show. That means a lot of other series have to be moved around or canceled to squeeze it in, and ABC, already one of the lowest-rated networks, has been canceling a lot of series. (Among the non-Last Man casualties: The Real O’Neals, American Crime, and The Catch, which has ABC favorite Shonda Rhimes behind it.)

Another ABC goner? Dr. Ken, which airs right after Last Man Standing on Friday nights and holds onto a healthy percentage of the Last Man audience (though less than it did last year). The cancellation of both suggests that ABC may be overhauling its Friday night, thanks to having to move other programs due to the arrival of Idol.

And ABC president Channing Dungey admitted as much during a conference call with reporters Tuesday, May 16. The decision to cancel the show stemmed from all of the above — and ABC’s decision to get out of the comedy business on Friday night.

“When we made the decision not to continue with comedies on Friday [cancellation was] where it landed,” she said.

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(continued)
5) Okay, maybe the politics stuff a little bit

Do I think Last Man Standing would be coming back next season if everything else were exactly the same as all of the above and the show didn’t star Hollywood’s most prominent Donald Trump supporter? I don’t not think that. I think there are a bunch of really good business reasons for the show to end — but I also don’t know that its increased reputation as “a sitcom for Donald Trump supporters” didn’t hurt it just a little bit. (Strangely, though, it did less with our current political landscape after Trump won.)

To be clear, I’m not saying that ABC’s executives walked into a boardroom and said, “We’ve got to get rid of our conservative-skewing sitcom!” They probably looked at how much Last Man Standing costs, its aging audience, its ownership, and their network’s upcoming schedule and realized it didn’t make a ton of sense to renew the show for another season, even if that season was planned as one last go-round. And Hollywood has a long history of supporting stars who say controversial things — even controversial conservative things — if those stars continue to make money for their studios and networks.

But I also keep asking myself if everything about Last Man Standing were exactly the same except it somehow starred the famously non-controversial (at least in 2017) Ted Danson, would it be back on the air? Probably not — but the hypothetical still gives me pause. Any time the only show of one type or another, even if it’s “the only sitcom headlined by a major Trump supporter,” leaves the air, it’s hard not to wonder.

Updated with comments from Channing Dungey.

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krl97a (54):

So there you have it. ABC just canceled several other shows along with Last Man Standing---Dr. Ken,another traditional family show;the amazing American Crime, which received good critical reviews, but sank in the ratings its third season; and Shonda Rimes' latest drama The Catch. There's no big fat conspiracy going on to get LMS off the air because it's conservative, so you need to let that go,and quit spewing nonsense. Enough whining about it. Also, most sitcoms nowadays are fortunate to last more than three or so years, given how finicky TV audiences can be, with so many viewing options now. A whole bunch of other shows from different stations are currently getting canceled too---LMS isn't the only one. Sign a petition to either get it back on the air, or for antoher channel to pick it up, like CBS, which has usually been a good place for traditional comedies (like Mike and Molly, for example.)

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Hey, sleepingtiger, I was going to be civil with you until you tacked on that obnoxious last paragraph. If you could read as well as you can copy paste you'd know all those excuses have already been discussed here and dismissed for the nonsense they are. I take the far left site Vox "explaining" something about as seriously as you probably take Sean Spicer explaining something. If your math skills didn't suck as much as your reading comprehension you would have noticed that this piece didn't contain hard numbers and was entirely speculation (the author even admitted as much, and yet you're treating it as an authoritative final answer). It didn't even offer up other examples of a network's #2 rated sitcom or #3 rated overall scripted show being axed before, syndication or no syndication.

You tell me they couldn't make ad money off their #2 watched sitcom, especially when it's drawing an audience that's somewhat different from that of their other shows, and I call BS on you. I doubt even you really believe that.

Of course the cancellation was political. Anyone who denies that is a liar or a moron. Network tv is littered with shows drawing 2 or 3 million viewers, many of them far more expensive than a half hour sitcom. LMS was drawing almost 6.5 million. The stuff about Tim Allen's pay going up is hogwash. That's chump change compared to what ABC spends on crap like Marvel Agents of Shield, Once Upon A Time, Quantico (only 2.792 million viewers! 0.67 in the demo!), and other garbage with an explicit liberal tilt getting renewed despite scraping the bottom of the ratings barrel. The excuse about the "aging" viewership falls apart when you look at LMS's demo numbers, posted in my op, which are strong and certainly better than many of these more expensive shows getting renewed. Of course ABC is putting out spin, but that's all it is.


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The irony of your moronic post is that we wouldn't even be discussing LMS this way if it wasn't an aberrational show, being the only scripted network series with a self-identified conservative main character portrayed in a positive light. Virtually every show on tv caters to left wingers, especially on ABC. Do you deny political bias in that regard? Does Vox or some other crap leftist blog have an “explanation” for that? Do you really believe that makes good business sense, and that all these network execs prioritize the bottom line without any hint of political agenda? Even your liberal author conceded there’s likely some political bias at play, which is telling. Of course working for a leftist outlet himself, he understates the truth. Last Man Standing's cancellation didn't happen in a vacuum. Leftists are looking to suppress public conservative voices anywhere they can, from campus speakers to the business world to media.

Another irony is that we're even discussing this HERE because Jeff Bezos opted to shut down the IMDb message boards after Trump's victory, part of an ongoing recent trend of liberal-run sites shutting down message boards. The excuse they give is "trolls", but trolls didn't seem to bother them back when they were mostly left wing. What's changed is that in recent years conservatives (mostly non trolls) have come to dominate message boards, or at least show up strongly, ripping biased articles and tv shows full of mistakes to shreds in embarrassing fashion. The leftists don't know how to handle that so they simply shut their boards down.

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In case you haven’t noticed, network tv is a sinking ship ratings wise and financially. Sure, some of that’s technology driven, but not all of it. Liberal “experts” were writing off cable news years ago as a dying medium too before FNC came along and provided the only non-leftist news network on tv. Under Roger Ailes it rose up and crushed its competitors combined for about 15 years, surging in viewership to heights not thought possible for a cable news outlet. Before Murdoch’s idiot liberal sons started recently ruining the network it was becoming competitive with network evening news broadcasts, something unthinkable not too many years ago.

FNC provided a model for someone out there willing to follow it. Its success stemmed from the ravenous market consisting of roughly half the country that was being totally ignored and/or attacked on a regular basis by the rest of the media/entertainment industry. If just one network flipped its evening news broadcast from liberal to conservative, or its late night “comedy” talk show, instead of just having a bunch of Daily Show clones all catering to the same clapping partisan seals, it would kill its competitors in the ratings. If a network made an investment in a high quality, explicitly conservative drama or sitcom it would almost certainly soar in the ratings. Even LMS wasn’t really conservative, but just featured a likeable conservative main character among a lot of liberals (“normalizing” conservatives was its sin in the eyes of leftist execs looking for excuses to shut it down), and yet it surged to a stable status as ABC’s #2 sitcom despite airing on Friday night, a terrible night for ratings (traditionally called the “slot of death”).

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But no network is doing this. They’re even cancelling their own ratings juggernauts, whether it’s Last Man Standing or the clueless Murdoch boys transitioning FNC into a liberal network over the next 5-10 years (effectively dismantling it and the biggest chunk of their own fortune in the process). If Fox News remains on this trajectory and sinks to irrelevance, then we’ll be back to a pre late 1990s mainstream media, where people have no major non-leftist news options….the bad old days I grew up in. But at least then most prime time entertainment was family friendly and not very partisan, with just hints of liberal bias sprinkled here and there. Now shows and talk shows are rabidly partisan Colbert-style, all in the same direction, and family friendly shows have been almost entirely replaced by a sewer.

There’s a growing fury out there among a majority of Americans who are being disregarded or attacked by the entire entertainment establishment, and if these networks, especially the ones broadcasting on finite public airwaves, continue like this it’s going to boil over in revolutionary ways that might not always be pretty.

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krl97a:
The whole point of that article was that there was a number of reasons the show got canceled, and it had more to do with the fact that ABC didn't own the show, therefore it wasn't making any real money off of it. That really was the main reason it was let go---not because of whatever BS liberal conspiracy you think exists. The fact is,times change, and shows like LMS simply aren't the norm anymore,plain and simple. And Fox News is not gonna change that much--they are who they are, even though I don't watch them either. Nothing moronic about this article--you're just some right wing paranoid hothead stuck in your little conspiracy theory about your favorite program. Like I said, since your narrow-minded self didn't even bother to read the article, there were at least two other ABC shows that would be considered "liberal" that also got canceled like LWS, but,no you want to act like only your little show is getting picked on, just so you can have any damn excuse to whine about liberals this and liberals that. This country is big enough for liberals like myself, narrow-minded paranoid right wingers like you and everybody else. You don't have a claim on it because you're conservative and it dosen't make you more patriotic,either. We aren't what's wrong with the country either, so quit blaming us for every damn thing. Republicans run the government now, so anything that happens now is on you and whoever you voted for. Bye bye now.

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No, your article admitted it was entirely speculative, moron, and its points had already been debunked here before you mindlessly posted that copy-paste, but at least you've shown your true colors, you leftist bubble dweller. As I pointed out, oh reading comprehension challenged one, those liberal shows getting axed had much, much lower ratings than Last Man Standing did. It was also the only show I know of on tv that "normalizes" (as leftists say) an explicitly conservative main character, while there are LOADS of stupid liberal shows on the air. Apparently the networks feel there isn't room for both conservatives and liberals on tv. That's too bad, because if shows like LMS were the norm then the networks would generally get much higher ratings than they do. By ignoring what I've said you're proving that you're the narrow minded one here, "sleepingtiger", as liberals generally are.

No one but you is talking about a "conspiracy theory", and you're too ignorant to know what that term means. We're talking about bias and political agenda pushing, which definitely happens, not "conspiracy theories". Examples of conspiracy theories include "Bush was behind 9/11", "right wingers assassinated JFK and framed poor left winger Lee Harvey Oswald", "white cops have organized to systematically murder black people", "the CIA started the US urban crack wave", "Donald Trump is Putin's Manchurian candidate". Those are false, insane conspiracy theories.

Have a nice day.

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https://www.quora.com/Was-Last-Man-Standing-canceled-because-Tim-Allen-supports-Trump/answer/Jon-Mixon-1

It was cancelled for three distinct reasons:

1. It’s ratings on ABC couldn’t justify its renewal - It was never a ratings blockbuster as Tim Allen is a mature talent whose fanbase is a narrow demographic.

2. Allen wasn’t interested in taking a pay cut - Allen wanted his same salary despite the series not doing too well. If he had at least considered a reduction there might have been room for discussion.

3. The series wasn’t selling well in syndication - Again Tim Allen is an acquired taste and he’s preferred by an older demographic. Without the boost that comes from selling a successful syndication package to the basic cable networks and smaller television stations, the series wasn’t as appealing as it might have been.

Tim Allen’s support of Trump certainly didn’t win him any friends (neither did his felony conviction, his DUis nor his limited acting and comedic ranges) however it had nothing to do with what was clearly a series of business decisions.

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That BS was debunked right off the bat, and as the op shows LMS killed more expensive shows that got renewed even in the demo. But I appreciate you bumping this thread after two years and reminding people that ABC sucks even more than most networks do. Since then Fox did pick the show up and it's been a ratings smash for them.

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[deleted]

Thanks, lol.

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Fox owns the show they could air it, it would be the top comedy for Fox Network

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You're right. They should. But I wouldn't hold my breath. Fox entertainment is run by leftist morons like ABC is. Guess we'll have to wait and see if they or someone else picks up the high rated show.

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People will tell you that you're paranoid. You're not. Read "Primetime Propaganda," by Ben Shapiro to see the history of this sort of thing.

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or make up your own shit, just as you do. it's equally unreliable.

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...said the guy who never read the incredibly well-documented book.

Busted.

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Believe it or not, ratings are not the only factor.

Television has refined their marketing revenue through research and some times a high rating from a bad audience isn't worth jack. A show like Seinfeld can do low ratings if the people who watch the show are rich spenders and TV is aware of this. All the mexican/hispanic shows have disappeared because of this because there was no money going to advertisers.

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I know ratings are not the only factor. That's a point "Primetime Propaganda" makes.

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you know nothing, john destinata.

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"John"?

Bless your heart, you must be one of those trolls who just says any old thing thinking it's a great comeback! You have a great day!

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for the watch, destinata, for the watch.

"You have a great day!"

i do. :D

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While I find Last Man Standing to be an awful show, it's obvious it was canceled for political reasons. The other shows are just as bad or even worse.

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Stratego:
No,it wasn't---that's what you right wingers like to tell yourselves. Everything isn't all about you and whatever the hell you like.

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Hey, special snowflake, you don't have to be a right-winger to see why it was canceled. And you desperately need to learn how to read, I actually said that I thought the show was awful. But based on the ratings it seemed a lot of people did like it, so it's ridiculous they pulled it off the air just to please a handful of morons like you.

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Stratego:
I never watched the show, so I could have cared less than a damn whether it was on or not. So go somewhere else with that "snowflake" BS. And I can obviously read very well, so you can step off with the uncalled insults, since that's all you little whiny snowflake right-wingers can do when challenged on your bull. And if you didn't like the show, then why the hell are you on here even wasting time posting about it? That makes no sense to me. But then nothing you right-wingers do makes sense anyway. You're going all out for a show you don't like just because it had a conservative character on it? How typically boring of you,lol.

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Haha, you must be kidding me! You complain about me calling you snowflake and insulting you after YOU called me names and insulted me first?

I' m going "all out" for this show? I posted two sentences, not even directed at you, about why I think it was canceled. You're the one who couldn't handle that and replied to me calling me names. You're the one posting an awful lot on a show you haven't even seen (How does that make sense?). Proof enough that you're indeed a special little snowflake (who apparently doesn't even know what the term means).

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Its good to see people trolling each other again.

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Why does this show seem to bring out the trolls so much? I found it was a boring All in the Family ripoff, I don't know anyone who watched it.

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Some shows people are just fanatical about, like Game of Thrones and Walking Dead. I am surprised that this show garners the same hate. I have tried watching this show but like you have said its basically a ripoff of his previous show and All in the Family.

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Why does this show seem to bring out the trolls so much?


While trolling the discussion board to a show you don't like and didn't watch.

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Never watched LMS, never struck me as interesting. Yet I would watch another season of this over another season of Quantico. Can't believe that got renewed or was seen as a better financial bet than a half hour sitcom. The numbers and audience scores for Quantico were awful too.

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I did wonder about that, why cancelling shows with good ratings? If they give a valid reason would be one thing, but no, maybe it is indeed about politics, which is quite sad.

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