If this is a harbinger of the week ahead, I may be taking off on a last-minute vacation tonight. ABC has gone and canceled one of TV's most consistently heartwarming hours, Men in Trees.The sad, depressing news was just confirmed to me by series creator Jenny Bicks, who says she was informed of the network's decision late last week. "I am really proud of the work we did on MIT," she tells me. "A huge thank you to our supportive fans." Bicks believes that two years of schizophrenic scheduling ultimately did the cherished dramedy in. "I wish the show had not been moved six times and put onto two long hiatuses," she sighs. "No show could survive that."Truer words have never been spoken. As soul-crushing as this is, I managed to find a silver lining in all this: Viewers will get their happy ending. Bicks and her team prepared for Trees' possible demise by shooting an alternate series-finale ending that will now be tacked onto the show's last episode, which is slated to air this summer. ...
read more
Add Pushing Daisies and Men in Trees to the list of shows preparing season finales as a result of the writers' strike.Daisies creator extraordinaire Bryan Fuller informs me that the show's ninth episode — the last one for which a script is written — can function as a season finale in the event the strike extends into the new year and beyond."As we were scrambling to rewrite [Episode 9]," he reveals, "we added several elements that will put many balls into the air and hopefully encourage the audience to come back and see how they land."Fuller confirms that production on the potential season finale got under way today, which means "our crew will now be able to work through Thanksgiving." Over at Men in Trees, show-runner Jenny Bicks reports that prior to the strike, she prepared an alternate ending "in case the last episode we have written becomes our finale. We would be sad if this happened, but we are prepared." As I pointed out in my handy strike chart, MIT — which c...
read more
Let others wax pop-culturey about the premieres of Chuck, Reaper and Gossip Girl. The show I'm excited to see on the air — and after an unacceptably truncated first season — is ABC's Men in Trees. Uprooted from its time slot without any fanfare (and all to make room for the likes of October Road and Notes from the Underbelly), Men in Trees returns Friday, Oct. 12, at 10 pm/ET, with a rather excellent episode, which I had the pleasure of screening over the weekend. (Any quality TV that engrosses and delights my wife always gets the upgrade to "excellent.")As you may know from embracing my news blog, ABC decided to take last season's unaired episodes and use them to "supersize" Men in Trees' sophomore season, resulting in fewer repeats and whatnot. Yet the first new episode out of the gate on the 12th is not from that batch. Rather, to better ease those both familiar with and new to the Anne Heche-starrer into the new season, they shot a brand-new episode titled "A Tree Goes...
read more
Another obstacle is taking root for Marin and Jack on Men in Trees.Ex-Practice star Kelli Williams is joining the cast as a love interest for James Tupper's conversationally challenged environmentalist. But in a bit of a twist, the two won't connect in Elmo. Far from it, in fact. "Jack's going off to do a job far, far away and he's going to meet a woman named Julia," Trees creator Jenny Bicks reveals to me exclusively. "She's happily married, but they are going to bond emotionally over something very significant that happens on the high seas." Williams is on board for at least five or six episodes, beginning with this season's seventh.
read more
An ABC.com blog entry by series creator Jenny Bicks confirms as much as anything can that Men in Trees' five unaired Season 1 episodes will not see the light of day until the fall, where they will be used to kick off a "more fattening," 27-episode sophomore run. Until then, Bicks says, "We will absolutely be on the air starting in June, with reruns all summer," though she is reluctant to hint at a time slot.Why did Trees not wrap up its freshman run this spring? Bicks says it speaks not at all to the quality of the unseen episodes, but rather "has everything to do with ABC wanting to use Thursday nights to showcase new shows" such as October Road and Notes from the Underbelly.
read more
