Networks may have buyers remorse

The fall TV season is tantalizingly close now, but for a few shows, it may be close but no cigar.

There are a lot of shows that get yanked after a few episodes, and a few that get the ax after a single airing — most recently Fox’s reality show “Anchorwoman,” which got pulled last week.

But sometimes there’s a show that never finds its way onto the schedule. It doesn’t happen every year, and sometimes the show is so lowprofile that it slips away without anyone noticing (“Commando Nanny”). But this season has a few pretty high-profile programs that have already rubbed their networks the wrong way and are in danger of going up in an ignominious blaze before the season gets started.

Topping that list is CBS’ highly anticipated “Kid Nation.” The usually staid network took a flier on a bunch of risky shows this fall, and none more so than this reality series that dropped 40 young children in a movie-set ghost town in the New Mexico desert, then let them fend for themselves for 40 days.

This one had tongues wagging when it was announced last winter. Skirting the child labor laws and manifold liabilities associated with letting the kids run the show seemed insurmountable.

Well, it proved doable, but not necessarily wise. Despite all the attention paid to “Kid Nation” before and immediately after the show was filmed, it’s only in recent weeks that the outrage machine has ratcheted up, with complaints, investigations and accusations of wrongdoing levied at CBS and the production company.

None of the kids was seriously hurt, but there were some close calls and minor accidents — if you consider drinking bleach “minor” — and a lot of people are belatedly debating the wisdom of this “Lord of the Flies” experiment.

Of course, for a new TV show, all attention is good attention, and the negative publicity has guaranteed that a lot of people will be tuning in for “Kid Nation’s” Sept. 19 premiere.

Networks are gun-shy about bad press, though. NBC blamed poor ratings when it pulled the controversial show “The Book of Daniel” last year, but the firestorm over the show’s depiction of religion didn’t help.

If the “Kid Nation” potato gets hot enough, expect CBS to swallow its pride and toss it to the wolves.

CBS isn’t the only network debating the wisdom of its earlier programming choices, though. ABC signed up for a sitcom version of the famous “even a caveman can do it” commercials for Geico insurance.

First, the sitcom, dubbed “Cavemen,” came under scrutiny for being a show based on a popular advertisement, which rubbed some people the wrong way. Then folks started watching the pilot, which used its prehistoric posse as a thinly veiled metaphor for race, which set off all kinds of alarms. That the pilot wasn’t very funny did not help its case.

So the show is being rewritten and recast. And it’s still scheduled for an Oct. 2 premiere. Again, though, ABC will stand for only so many headaches before it decides to put its cavemen back on ice.

MACMULLAN STICKS AROUND FOR A FEW MORE

Former KRDO/Channel 13 “Good Morning Colorado” anchor Kellie Mac-Mullan said goodbye a few weeks ago, but she hasn’t left completely.

MacMullan signs on today at Denver’s CW2, KWGN/Channel 2, which can be seen in the Springs on Comcast channel 22. She’ll mostly be reporting for KWGN, although she’ll be filling in behind the anchor desk next week.

MacMullan said she’ll miss Colorado Springs but said she’s really excited about working at CW2.

“It’s probably the best opportunity I could have asked for,” she said.

She left “Good Morning Colorado” just after the station won the morning news race for the first time in recent memory.

“It’s finally at a place where we feel really proud of it,” MacMullan said of “GMC.”

“I think people are really going to start to notice. That’s really exciting to be a part of that change.

“I’m going to miss it, that’s for sure.”

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0275 or awineke@gazette.com

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