Terra Nova, Alcatraz, or how Fox blows up its own series

Although all networks cancel shows because they didn't work, Fox seems to be enduring a karma of its own regarding this subject.

The course (or maybe curse?) of Terra Nova, seems to be the perfect example: a great original idea, a long delay on the series premiere for reasons that nobody explained but were pretty clear once the first episode started, cancelled after 13 episodes.

Right away you can see a problem: in the show's credits you see more executive producers than stars. Fox took the show away from its original producers and tried to make it more attractive. Another big reason of the show's failure can be seen right in the first episode and along most of the other twelve: what was promoted as a science-fiction show, ended up being a family show with teenage romance and a few mysteries nobody cared about.
Ratings weren't all that bad; the show had around 7 million viewers, a number that looked good for a second season.


A different case, although similar, is Alcatraz. Season 1 ended a few weeks ago with really slow ratings for its time slot, but the show has not been cancelled yet (April 7).
Alcatraz started in a big way, with a real legend of its own, a big mystery, and JJ Abrams' name on top of it. Sadly, that was not enough.

For starters, Elizabeth Sarnoff, creator of the show, left it because of "creative differences", which looked supicious as nobody leaves their own show becasue of that. Pretty soon we realised the truth, when many scenes were re-written and re-shot by Fox's producers, trying to make the show more attractive by dropping parts of the big mystery every now and then, and thinking that the very own name of Mr. JJ Abrams would get more viewers even if he actually has nothing to do with Alcatraz, besides beign his company, Bad Robot, credites as producers.

On the other hand, Alcatraz made the big mistake of thinking that the individual stories told on each episode would be enough, while none of the main characters developed a background; including the fact that Parminder Nagra's character was quietly shelved. All of this stopped the viewers from empathizing with the characters.

All of this made Alcatraz end its first short season with just a little more than 5 million viewers.