A lot has happened in the world of television recently.
Here's a quick rundown.
[jump]FXX cancels Totally Biased with W. Kamau BellThe late-night talk show on politics, pop culture, race, religion and the media, was picked up for a second season — and dropped. It was canceled by FXX after a sharp decline in ratings. One of the batch of original programming that made the switch from FX to the new FXX (available in 26 million fewer homes than its parent channel), the show struggled after converting to a daily format. Without a proper lead-in, viewership plummeted to as low as 10,000 in recent episodes.
FXX purchases The Simpsons In a shocking move that will no doubt increase viewers for the young channel, FXX has won the bidding war to become the cable and VOD home of the longest running comedy in TV history. For a record $750 million FXX will have access to all 530-plus episodes for what is believed to be 10 years. Although the deal doesn’t begin until August 2014, this will surely be a boon to the network and the upcoming FXNow mobile viewing app. For Simpsons nerds like me, this is probably the best news regarding the show you’ve heard in some time. The possibility of streaming the show instead of relying on DVDs (who wants to keep getting up to change a disk?) is sure to put a damper in my day-to-day productivity.
Not necessarily The Daily Show? Jon Stewart directing a movie turned out to be the best thing that’s ever happened to John Oliver. The 36-year-old Brit has spun his fill-in hosting gig at The Daily Show into his own weekly show on HBO. The yet-to-be-named show will likely air Sundays in the 11 p.m. time slot, premiering sometime in 2014 and having the Daily Show model of focusing on politics, news and current events. ... Some of you might be experiencing deja vu, recalling another British cable news-oriented comedy show from back in the day.
The Killing lives on ... After some critical praise for the show’s first season that included six Emmy nominations, things went downhill quickly as the two subsequent seasons of The Killing were forgotten by voters and torn to shreds among the internet’s TV critic intelligentsia. The news is especially painful to fans of far superior shows —Terriers, Deadwood, and Happy Endings to name a few — that met their demise too soon. How about throwing one of those shows a bone, Netflix? Well, the show that won’t die has been revived yet again. After being canceled by AMC for the second time, The Killing was saved by Netflix in a six-episode, streaming-only deal for the show’s fourth and final season.