Combat Hospital doomed at ABC

Global TV is looking into their scheduling plans given this news – to simulcast or not when ABC is skipping an episode. The show does astronomically better in Canada than the US so this doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t be renewed for a second season by Global. Compare with The Listener, which was cancelled by NBC but is still airing (give or take) on CTV.

From the Futon Critic:

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8 thoughts on “Combat Hospital doomed at ABC”

  1. They could simply show eps 11th at 9pm and then simulcast episode 12 at 10pm with ABC. With the numbers it gave Global, it deserves to get all it’s episodes shown, and be renewed.

  2. My guess is that Combat Hospital is dead. It doesn’t have the money pot behind it that The Listener has with Shaftesbury, Bell, and Fox International Channels – is it even seen elsewhere? It is a pretty expensive show by Canadian standards.

    My vote to goes to retaining the original schedule and falling a week behind the US. Personally this has actually revived my interest in the show and now i want to see all 13 eps. If Shaw has the integrity to do that for its viewers then they can sadly use the likely really poor ratings for the last 3 episodes as cause to cancel the show. Or they can skip the episode and make you search for it on Showcase 3 months from now and have likely high ratings and cancel the show blaming poor US performance and costs being too high to do it without a US broadcaster. Either way i see the show getting cancelled. Unless Fox International Channels or AXN or some other mass-multi-market international broadcaster picks up the show. There just won’t be the cash-flow to sustain it otherwise.

    Why is it struggling on ABC? It is a show that is about a war their country is still actively fighting, whatever the exact title they give it today. For that alone people were preemptively calling for boycotts of the show and its broadcasters. Stories of soldiers demanding their family NOT watch the show because it is a disgrace could be found all over the place in the weeks leading up to its premiere. What people thought the show would be about before ever seeing it was enough to deeply offend a lot of people. Ignorant? Yes. But they still were offended. And that can turn a promising show into a failure pretty quickly.

    1. Its much like the playboy club some were calling for bans telling people not to watch it etc.This show has now got one year under its belt with strong ratings in canada so they should not have to much issue getting picked up by cable and dish companys around the world.

  3. For the record, as an American citizen and resident, I’m enjoying the show quite a bit.

    I’m not sure why it’s not doing well on ABC, when it’s a better show than the better-performing Rookie Blue.

    To be honest, I hadn’t heard of any campaign against the show down here, but it’s certainly true that we Americans as a whole have tired of the war in Afghanistan, and this could well be reflected in an apathy toward the show.

    1. Jerry, some might be harder to find today than they were 3 months ago. Mostly i found it on forums including ABC’s forum for the show. There were links to some newspaper articles on currently military personnel’s thoughts on making a tv show about a war they are still involved in. It was publicity for the show but would be really hard to spin it positive other than to say people were aware of the show. I wouldn’t call it much of an organised campaign but more like a lot of individuals getting their words out.

      And regarding your P.S., yes i too wonder. If it is that bad why not just cut it off now and put up 3 weeks of some mindless drivel. That episode of Happy Endings which had been skipped by ABC was on tv last night. The producers said it was skipped because it tested bad. It wasn’t that bad. It might have been highly offensive to hard core fans of reality tv.

  4. P.S. This kind of scheduling change annoys the crap out of me. Why leave out one episode? It’s not like they don’t have enough time to finish the run before the new fall season debuts.

  5. I love Combat Hospital….the characters are getting interesting, the story lines are emotionally provoking….the writing is excellent….please renew for another season. Hated you left out an episode….I have seen all episodes and questioned why you would leave out important parts of the character’s storylines…..

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