Commentary : Failure-Shy Networks Don’t Hesitate to Give the Kiss-Off

Sniff.

There’s something in the air.

Smell that?

It’s the smell of freshly mowed network programming.

Didn’t catch the new CBS series “Angel Street,” with Robin Givens and Pamela Gidley in their racially charged but dramatically dead variation on “Cagney & Lacey”?

Too late. It’s gone and already forgotten.

Were you fond of “Frannie’s Turn,” which, like “Angel Street,” was part of No. 1 CBS’ Saturday-night lineup?

Well, get used to life without it. CBS has given the sitcom--a kind of “Roseanne” meets “Brooklyn Bridge”--the ax.

Doesn’t seem fair, does it?

Here today, gone today.

And yet, year after year, the networks continue--despite acknowledging the financial waste and utter foolishness of the process--to offer up millions of dollars of programming for ratings slaughter each fall.

And with so much else going on in television this year--the presidential debates, the World Series, paid programming from Ross Perot, etc.--it’s been particularly hard to find, much less settle into, a new series.

But let’s stop--before we mourn or simply note the passing of this year’s ratings victims--and do a little reality check, shall we?

The networks haven’t been dazzling us as much as dumping on us, so it’s always nice when they decide to take the trash out.

In the case of “Angel Street” and “Frannie’s Turn,” it was the worst of all worlds: bad shows on a bad TV night (Saturdays) delivering bad ratings to the No. 1 network.

Not so with No. 2 ABC’s first official cancellation, “Laurie Hill.” Which is not to say that “Laurie Hill” wasn’t a bad show. It was awful. Dreadful. Mind-numbing.

And while we’re kicking a show while it’s down, we should add that “Laurie Hill” is proof that even the most talented behind-the-scenes team (the creators of “The Wonder Years”) is no guarantee of programming satisfaction.

And then there’s the disappearance of ABC’s “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles,” a show that’s gone on hiatus and will return in January.

On to the former No. 1 and now No. 3 network, NBC.

Applause. Applause. Applause.

Why the cheers?

Because it’s so nice when the worst kinds of shows, for whatever reason, don’t make it.

Showing good sense, no doubt based in financial concerns, NBC has cleaned its own Friday-night clock by tossing out the reality shows “What Happened?” and “Final Appeal: From the Files of ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ ” as well as one of Aaron Spelling’s twentysomething series, “The Round Table.”

Meanwhile, and this gets confusing, so follow as best you can, Thursdays and Saturdays are being reconfigured.

The good news is that NBC’s critically acclaimed political satire “The Powers That Be,” starring John Forsythe, is back, now airing Saturdays.

Furthermore, “Rhythm & Blues,” a much-despised Thursday series about a white disc jockey at a black radio station in Detroit, is on hiatus. But--too bad--NBC says it will be back.

Got it?

Which brings us, finally, to Fox Broadcasting.

The first thing you have to realize about Fox is that very little, almost nothing, gets canceled at Fox Broadcasting once the season begins because the fourth network, based on distribution, deals with a smaller universe of viewers.

But the season, like Fox, is still young. Only the viewers, who are still waiting for a reason to watch, are getting older.