No more According to Jim? Don’t mess with me, ABC – Open Letters

To the bean counters and pole sitters over at ABC:

You’re toying with my emotions. Here I am in a fragile enough state, what with the economy plunging down the water slide of recession. Now I’m hearing news that one of the banes of my existence, one of the thorns in my side, one of my pet peeves may soon be coming to an end.

What I’m hearing is According to Jim, otherwise known as The Show That Will Never Die, could be ending its eight-year run this May after several weeks of double-episode runs that will replace Homeland Security, U.S.A. Many industry folk are saying once the last dozen or so episodes begin airing in late March it will be the end of the line for Jim and his family’s first run life (though they will continue until the end of time in syndication).

ABC, I hope you’re willing to put your dwindling financials where your eating orifice is on this matter, because we’ve heard this mentioned before. In fact, we may have even heard something about it at the end of the last season. Alas, when we viewers thought we could breathe a sigh of relief about it all, the show reared its ugly head again to fill an empty slot on your schedule. With seemingly utter hopelessness already dragging us down, this was just another big boulder on our collective backs.

Now, According to Jim isn’t truly horrible like some of the dreck that has passed for comedy over the years. I just think that its gotten a certain stigma due to the way you have treated it. Rather than saying, “You know, this show had a good run and we can now relax because we have enough episodes for syndication,” you have beaten the show to death. You’ve used it as a stopper to fill empty holes in your schedule left over by sometimes better, sometimes lesser shows, or when Dancing With the Stars or Lost has taken a break. This has made the show the laughingstock of television — not in a good way — and the butt of jokes by critics and semi-pro bloggers like myself.

This is your last chance, ABC. Either make a commitment and let us know that According to Jim is completely, totally, definitely done and will never appear on the ABC schedule again, or tell us that it will remain on the schedule, in one form or another, until the last man on Earth collapses due to eating tainted peanut butter. The proverbial ball is now in your court.

Cautiously optimistic,

Rich Keller

Clacked by Richard Keller
on Mar 06, 2009 @ 13:00 EST5EDT