Renewals and Cancellations

The Human Target was canceled for next year. This is no surprise. Its ratings kept dropping.

This show shows the signs of network tampering. The first season featured fast-paced action with a lot of humor. Stories were told in non-linear fashion. An episode would open on Chance in a tight fix then alternate scenes between advancing the plot and showing how he got there in the first place. The comedy Grounded For Life did the same thing its first season then switched to normal linear plots.

I'm betting that someone at Fox decided that Human Target was too hard to watch and needed to switch to linear stories and add some women to the cast. The second season lost a lot of its light humor in favor of more character interaction. It slowed the episodes down and they just weren't as much fun to watch.

On the other hand, Chuck was picked up for a final 13 episodes. I'm a little surprised at this. The writing for the 4th season seemed a little off. The premise of the show - Chuck gaining knowledge or martial arts skills from flashes was largely forgotten and he has become too capable in his role as a spy. The whole season centered on Chuck's mother who spent years in deep cover working for a criminal named Volkoff. It was not a strong enough storyline to sustain itself across an entire season. They should have had more non-Volkoff/non-mother episodes.

Chuck's ratings were not very good, either. It says a lot about the state of NBC that it carries shows that have fewer viewers than some of Syfy's offerings.