It's not canceled: We offer TV networks some alternative labels

Has the word “canceled” been canceled? 

TV networks have long dodged the term in the same way people skirt the word “died” when consoling the grieving. However, tiptoeing around a word seen as an admission of failure has now become a full-scale sprint away from it.

As in the past, the fall TV season features several low-rated newcomers. What's different, three months into the season, is that no shows have been canceled, even though some are likely to be gone after they complete initial 13-episode orders. 

Instead of being pulled from the schedule and drawing headlines, many new shows now simply peter out, running out their initial 13-episode orders without  any new episodes (CBS's Pure Genius) or, in some cases, having their orders "trimmed" (ABC's Notorious). Left open is the possibility of a renewal decision some time in the distant future – at which time a new batch of shows are announced and the previous year's goners are more likely to be forgotten. 

Fall TV status report: Which new series are going, or staying?

"I don't think networks want to point attention to what's not there anymore," says David Bianculli, TV critic for NPR's Fresh Air and author of The Platinum Age of Television (Doubleday). When networks present their fall schedules each May, "They announce what's new and what's planning to return, but they never make any mention of what's gone."  

There are legitimate reasons why networks are slower to pull the plug: reruns and replacements likely won’t do any better, and the popularity of delayed viewing requires more time to assess a program's performance. 

“They’re finally aware that the replacements are not necessarily even doing as well as the shows they’re replacing,” Bianculli says. "So, unless they have something they feel better about, and the (current show's episodes) are being produced, why not go ahead and run them?" 

Still, it seems like there are more creative ways to announce a show’s demise, such as cancelling it by “mutual agreement” between network, studio and creator. 

As in baseball, TV's success is measured by hits, and even All-Star batters fail 70% of the time. But instead of changing the framing, why not just acknowledge failed shows and move on?  Because they can't. 

Along those lines, we have potential alternatives to the dreaded “canceled,” as in:

• The show was “wished into the cornfield.” This one even has a TV connection, referring to a Twilight Zone episode that features an all-powerful little boy’s erasure of people who displeased him.

• “Disappeared,” as in what sometimes happened to enemies in Eastern European dictatorships or South American military juntas.

• “DNR order.” That transIates to Do Not Renew, rather than Do Not Resuscitate. For shows suffering an irreversible ratings coma, a natural death takes precedence over series-saving measures.

• “Gone to a better place.” Besides being a softer euphemism for cancellation, this also can apply to canceled shows that move from a broadcast network to a streaming service (The Mindy Project, Community). Not to be confused with NBC’s The Good Place.

• The show has gone to “the island of misfit television series.” As the misshapen playthings on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’s Island of Misfit Toys are saved and distributed by Santa Claus, these shows can hope for another chance when studios decide to recycle them years later as now beloved — and cost-free! — intellectual property.   

• “RIF’d.” Employers created the term Reduction in Force as a bureaucratic replacement for the harsher layoff. In TV, this could mean Reduction in Freshmen, the cancellation of first-year shows, or Rescheduled into Friday, a low-rated night that is often a transitional purgatory before a series "goes to a better place."