Expect to hear several reports like these in the coming days, as it’s currently harvesting season over at the networks—and because you can’t harvest without doing a bit of reaping, last night ABC announced that it had given the axe to Better Off Ted, Scrubs, and FlashForward. Not much surprise there: Scrubs had suffered in the ratings in its awkward, AfterBRAFF incarnation; Better Off Ted was a good show that was never really given a chance to find an audience, therefore IT MUST DIE; and FlashForward squandered its interesting premise and worthwhile cast on several go-nowhere episodes, plot conceits that fell apart the longer characters stood around arguing about them, and some of the most gratingly on-the-nose dialogue outside of a grad student’s one-man show. There’s no word on whether the show will be allowed to wrap up its myriad dangling plotlines, but it seems likely that those will be left to your FlashForward fan-fiction page. (Also canceled: Alyssa Milano's Romantically Challenged, which we barely had time to get to know.)
With FlashForward gone, ABC has apparently decided to cling desperately to V as its unlikely successor to Lost, giving the show a full renewal and—hopefully—page after page of notes for improvement, beginning with the idea that viewers most likely tune in to see people waging war against aliens, not spending 43 minutes bickering in a circle.