2012: TV’s New Obscurities

A new year is upon us and that means lots of looking back at 2012. Here’s my annual list of “new” obscurities: television programs that premiered in 2012 but aired 13 episodes or fewer. There are a total of 20 programs on the list compared to 17 in 2011 and 18 in 2010. Of these, only three have episodes that were not aired on television. That’s down considerably from the 11 programs in 2011 and nine in 2012 that had unaired episodes.

Several of the shows that premiered last fall, including The Mob Doctor, 666 Park Avenue and Emily Owens, M.D., still have episodes yet to air but as of right now all of those episodes are scheduled. Made in Jersey, the first cancellation of the 2012-2013 season, was pulled after just two episodes had been broadcast. The remaining six episodes were burned off beginning November 14th with the last two airing December 29th. At least one show, NBC’s Saving Hope (a Canadian co-production that has been renewed in that country but not here in the States), had its unaired episodes released online.

A handful of these new obscurities have been released on DVD while others are available for purchase online via digital download, which may increasingly be the only way to own these short-lived shows.

Mid-Season 2012

Work It (ABC) – 6 episodes, 4 unaired
Premiered January 3rd

Are You There, Chelsea? (NBC) – 12 episodes
Premiered January 11th

The Finder (FOX) – 13 episodes
Premiered January 12th

Rob (CBS) – 8 episodes
Premiered January 13th

Napoleon Dynamite (FOX) – 6 episodes
Premiered January 15th

Alcatraz (FOX) – 13 episodes
Premiered January 16th

The River (ABC) – 8 episodes
Premiered February 7th

Awake (NBC) – 13 episodes
Premiered March 1st

GCB (ABC) – 10 episodes
Premiered March 4th

Missing (ABC) – 10 episodes
Premiered March 15th

Bent (NBC) – 6 episodes
Premiered March 21st

Best Friends Forever (NBC) – 6 episodes
Premiered April 4th

NYC 22 (CBS) – 13 episodes
Premiered April 15th

Summer 2012

Saving Hope (NBC) – 13 episodes, 2 unaired
Premiered June 7th

Fall 2012

Animal Practice (NBC) – 9 episodes, 3 unaired
Premiered August 12th

The Mob Doctor (FOX) – 13 episodes
Premiered September 17th

Partners (CBS) – 13 episodes, 6 unaired
Premiered September 24th

Last Resort (ABC) – 10 episodes
Premiered September 27th

Made in Jersey (CBS) – 8 episodes *first cancellation of the 2012-2013 season*
Premiered September 28th

666 Park Avenue (ABC) – 13 episodes
Premiered September 30th

Emily Owens, M.D. (The CW) – 13 episodes
Premiered October 16th


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11 Replies to “2012: TV’s New Obscurities”

  1. ‘Emily Owens, M.D.’ has 13 produced episodes, and The CW announced that they will all air in the Tuesday at 9 pm timeslot until ‘Cult’ takes over in February. ‘Last Resort’ also produced 13 episodes, all of which should air.

    I really hope we eventually get to see the unaired episodes of ‘Work It’, ‘Animal Practice’ and ‘Partners’, even if it’s just a release on YouTube. I enjoyed all three comedies.

    Happy New Year to the tvobscurities.com-munity!

    1. DuMont, thanks for the correction. As for YouTube, aside from that one CW series that saw two unaired episodes uploaded to YouTube, have any other unaired episodes been released via that site?

      1. A few have. Just off the top of my head, I was able to watch the unaired ‘Caveman’ episodes that ABC didn’t air, along with the unaireds from The CW’s ‘TBL: The Beautiful Life’ (was that The CW series you were thinking of?). I’m pretty sure both were released by somebody involved with the series because they were very high quality screeners.

        I think it’s a terribly decent thing to do where no DVD release is planned to allow the actors, directors, writers and other creatives a showcase for their work.

  2. See you have Saving Hope listed here. Whihc it really should not be since the third season of the series just started in Canada last week. It is a Canadain show and NBC ran some of the episodes from the first season. A second season of 9 episodes ran last summer and an unknown number of 3rd season episodes juts started on 2 Jan. Episode 24 will run on Thursday!

    I have not checked to see if there are older lists like this but another Canuck show Listener was also run here during the first season but not the later episodes. The 4th season will run sometime this year.

    1. Alan, perhaps we can consider Saving Hope (and The Listener) American obscurities, since they did not last long in this country even if they have thrived in Canada.

  3. FYI- the season finale of Saving Hope aired this past Thursday (27 Feb 14) on CTV making the total number of episodes for all three seasons 31. It ended on a cliffhanger. If you still have a big satellite dish and the proper receiver you can get CTV as well as sister network CTV2 all over North America for free- although this could change at any moment.

  4. I guess a show becomes obscure when it becomes obscure someplace. I’m sure Skippy wasn’t obscure in Australia in the late 70’s, but it sure was in the US. I’m sure this works the other way around with US programs disappearing from other countries.

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