Freshman Suspense Thrillers Fall Off the Face of TV

With FOX’s serial thriller drama "24" paving the way for television’s biggest mystery/suspense boom ever, there are a lot of shows coming to the air attempting to capture the essence of this genre in one hour a week. "Lost" and "Prison Break" have been pulling their twists and turns to large audiences and have been pretty successful following "24" in suit.

But, there’s only so much room for these types of drama. If originality doesn’t give way, viewer interest just might. Yet, three new decently promoted shows cropped up at the start of this season; ABC’s "The Nine" and FOX’s "Vanished" and "Standoff." Now, when most shows are going on holiday hiatus and having their fall finales, only one of those three shows is left standing; "Standoff" ironically enough.

First, "Vanished" was pulled from the air, and this was not long after the series made a bold but bad move in killing off Gale Harold’s character, lead FBI Agent Graham Kelton. The remaining episodes weren’t even scheduled for TV, but as reported by Zap2it.com, the unaired episodes were set up on MySpace to be available in streaming OnDemand form. The finale will be streaming there as of December 8th.

Now, ABC has pulled "The Nine" as well. The catch is that the show is not being cancelled as of yet, but effective immediately it is indefinitely homeless at the network. It’s slipped into new series limbo, and even though ABC claims the show will return at some unknown time later in the season, this is clearly not a good sign.

As TV becomes overrun by shows trying to keep up with this trend of jigsaw puzzle plotlines, the field is getting a little crowded, and it’s possible that audiences are becoming less likely to even check out the new players, much less want to invest more time in following them. A show can’t just survive under this pressure to play and play well; it has to thrive beyond a shadow of anything we’ve seen before.