‘Chuck’ Renewed, ‘Sarah Connor Chronicles’ Is Cancelled

It looks like Chuck fans can rest easy. NBC has announced tonight that it will be renewing the show for a third season, though it will receive a shortened 13-episode season along with other possible budget reductions. Ausiello reports that the show may lose a cast member, and possibly two staff writers as well. Given that the series has many secondary characters, I’m thinking we could easily lose someone without affecting the core of the show at all. The writer cut also makes sense given the shortened season run.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles fans unfortunately have less to celebrate. While I can’t find any other sources corroborating this, Ausiello has updated the show’s status on his fall tv cheat sheet to “officially cancelled.” Given that he already reported that the show was pretty much down for the count last month, the show’s fate is not all that surprising. As a person who appreciated the series, I’m saddened to see the show go.

I think the decision may have come down to saving Dollhouse or Terminator, and despite how much I dig the Sarah Connor Chronicles, I won’t give up Dollhouse’s 13 episode renewal for anything.

While we’ve lost some good television shows this season, I’m heartened to see the likes of Chuck, Dollhouse, and Friday Night Lights survive. It gives me the (possibly naive) hope that good television shows may actually get recognized for their quality—instead of constantly being threatened by ratings numbers.

Discuss: Are you happy about the Chuck renewal? Do you think Sarah Connor Chronicles deserved another chance? Was Dollhouse the better choice for Fox?

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Future of ‘Chuck’, ‘Dollhouse’ Still Unknown

As NBC and Fox work to finalize their schedules for next year, the future of two genre shows, “Chuck” and “Dollhouse” remain up in the air. According to Variety, both networks are in the process of refining their final schedules for next year and will present them next week at their network upfront presentations.

Both shows are still considered to be “on the bubble” with no word on their immediate future either way. Reports indicate that Joss Whedon recently pitched a second season to Fox and that negotiations between the network and the show’s studio, 20th Century Fox, were on-going. Rumors abound that “Dollhouse” may be working with Fox to cut its cost to the network. However, the show could be in trouble with Fox looking to establish a new reality-TV beachhead along the lines of ratings-giant “American Idol” for its fall schedule. Conflicting reports continue to surface on whether Fox is ready to give the show a second chance or ready to move on.

Meanwhile, nothing new on the “Chuck” front. We’ll have an update on this week’s Slice of SciFi about the status of “Chuck.”