An end to Grace

Saving Grace, with Holly Hunter, will finish its run next summer. Reportedly the studio was losing money on it.

According to the show’s creator, Nancy Miller, TNT wanted a full-season order for the series, but Fox, the show’s studio, declined for budgetary reasons.

Fox...the same studio that (in network form) hung my Terminator out to dry...

While Miller would have liked to see the show continue beyond the episodes scheduled for 2010, she said she is glad she got to tell the story about Grace Hanadarko, an Oklahoma City detective whose life is transformed by the appearance of a guardian angel.

"Here’s the deal. I got to set a show in Oklahoma City, my hometown, tell the story of Grace Hanadarko and explore God. [But] the DVDs are not selling, they can’t sell it foreign, and they’ve already lost a lot of money, and they don’t see any of that changing.

Great...now I feel guilty for not buying the DVDs. But then, what would a show exploring God be without a little guilt? Oh, well. This is one of the shows for which I've been most thankful in the last year or two.

For a while, at least, I got to see my favorite actress on television once a week. Besides that, I'll miss, among other things, the inter-female relationships on the show.

These were some of the best on television, by which I mean the ladies actually talk to each other about things besides men. And what ladies they were.

Any series that stars Holly Hunter, with the luscious (and hugely gifted) Laura San Giacomo in a featured role, with episodic appearances by the likes of Christina Ricci...





...well, for a show like that to fail may just prove that God is dead.

In recent episodes, besides Hunter & Giacomo, I've really become aware of what a great ensemble the cast has become.

When Hunter was absent from the middle third of an episode (her character had been kidnapped and the others came together to figure out who had taken her), I barely missed her at all.

But...for me not to miss Holly Hunter? To underscore: Not just as a guy who thinks she's a babe is she my favorite actress. If I were one (an actress) she'd be one of my role models.

Now, if I wanted to be dark, sardonic and bitter, I'd say that this year, first the networks took my Life, and now they've taken my Grace.

If I wanted to be dark, sardonic and bitter.

But fortunately, I don't. And anyway, as I quoted earlier, it seems to be the studio, not the network that killed this one.

Michael Wright, head of programming for TNT, told The Hollywood Reporter that he was disappointed to be losing the show prematurely.

TNT wanted more and (unlike NBC with Life, he said pointedly), I can't be mad at them for a lack of promotion. They hyped the heck out of the series.



Oh, well...