On March 2, 2009, ABC announced that it has canceled one of its best shows: Life on Mars.
There has been overwhelming fan response to ABC's decision to cancel, and thousands of disappointed fans have taken action to let ABC executives know how they feel.
Unfortunately, thousands aren't good enough. The networks rely on an outdated ratings system to approximate how many millions of viewers are watching a show. In this day and age of time-shifted viewing (DVRs like TiVo, MythTV, and Windows Media Center) and online viewing, the outdated system does not paint a clear enough statistical picture.
Though the ratings had improved over the last few weeks of the show's run - a respectable start and clear indication that a gradual fan base was building - it was not enough for ABC to care.
The finale aired as planned on April 1, 2009 with mixed reactions from fans, the majority of whom wanted the show to continue despite the rushed ending.
It was obvious that the last 10 minutes of the originally planned season finale were replaced with 10 minutes of an alternate ending - an ending that some liked but most people say felt rushed just to wrap up the series.
There is still a push to convince ABC to rethink cancelling the series. Even with over 16,000 petition signers, there needs to be MUCH MORE support.
This doesn't mean the same 10 people spamming ABC over and over. That won't work. EVERY SINGLE FAN who enjoyed Life on Mars needs to make an effort to show strength in numbers.
At minimum, some fans are hoping ABC will re-air the entire season of Life on Mars during the summer season in the hopes that it will gain more of an audience and help boost DVD pre-sales and sales.
If ABC cannot be convinced to bring the show back, the next steps would be to either try getting another company (HBO, USA, SciFi, etc) to resume production of the show, or propose a US version of the Ashes to Ashes spinoff.
