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Producer Ponders 'Tru Calling' Fate
By Kate O'Hare

It's been a little over a month since FOX announced that it had scaled
back production on the second season of "Tru Calling" from 13 episodes
to six, and handed over its Thursday, Nov. 4, premiere date to the
summer soap opera "North Shore."

Series producer Jon Harmon Feldman has been working on the
post-production for the six episodes of the fantasy series starring
Eliza Dushku ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer") as Tru, a med student and
morgue attendant who can go back a day in time to prevent deaths.

After FOX had been quick on the trigger finger to cancel such series
as "Harsh Realm," "Lone Gunmen," "Firefly" and "Wonderfalls," many
were surprised when the low-rated "Tru" not only made it through its
first season up against "Survivor" and "Friends," but looked to be
coming back for a second.

"There have been rumors flying about ['Tru' going to] The WB," Feldman
says, "although, at this point, I believe them to be only rumors,
nothing more. They picked us up, as I was told, because they were
excited about the direction of the show. They know what a tough time
slot we were in, and they really believed that, based on the growth of
the show, where we were heading, what we had planned for next season,
that they wanted to see more of us.

"The only thing I've hard is that this decision was a business
decision, to allocate money to shows that perhaps they thought had
bigger futures or breakout potential. I'm not really sure how to
characterize that. Obviously, when you work in network television, you
always know these possibilities exist, but the way it went down was
somewhat of a surprise."

The addition of Jason Priestley as Tru's opposite number and rival at
the end of last season gave the show a creative boost.

"The irony is," Feldman says, "creatively, they've never been happier
with the direction we were going. We had Jason as a full-time
adversary, and Jason and Eliza's story had interesting twists. That's
why I don't think this was a creative decision -- in fact, I know it
wasn't a creative decision.

"If there's any slight silver lining -- although certainly it's a
Pyrrhic victory -- is that it was not a creative decision. That is the
hollowest of victories."

The first season of "Tru Calling" is set to be released by Fox Home
Video on DVD on Nov. 30. Harmon hopes fans will get a chance to see
the remaining episodes.

"There has been talk of releasing season two, the six episodes, to DVD
as well. I hope that happens. It won't allow us to complete the arc
that we were starting, but perhaps if we do release season two to DVD,
at least it will give some of the creative people an opportunity to
not only show those six episodes but also tell the fans what was going
to happen. Those are stories worth hearing, worth telling."

FOX has yet to announce a season premiere date for "Tru."

"The network has not said they won't air these six," Harmon says, "but
obviously you don't know what will happen. I am not planning a viewing
party at this point."

[img]graemlins/flame.gif[/img] I hope Rupert Murdoch goes completely bankrupt forced to sell his entire empire just to break even. Fox has gotten on my nerves with their news coverage and letting George Lucas chop up Star Wars. Cancelling Tru for a cookie cutter soap opera is the final straw. I'm not watching their network or movies from now on. [img]graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[Faith_Fan]

Jon just proved why I don't like Tru Calling - no respect for the fans.

STC's two sources are (Edit: I've chilled out, I shouldn't post that). STC gets this "WB! WB! WB!" rally call from (edit: STC's source), and then we get all this "it's just a rumor" garbage from Jon. After about 5 emails saying "what's going on with the WB" the past two weeks, STC gets an email last week from (edit: STC's source) saying he doesn't know. Then Jon's "it's a rumor" crap. Jon knows good and well why it's a rumor. (edit: STC's source) goes from emailing STC asking us to help to giving us no help. Goddammit.

If it wasn't for Eliza I'd pull the site down right now.

[ October 15, 2004, 02:31 PM: Message edited by: Faith_Fan ]

[M@tt]

More indecisiveness, just what our campaigns need. Though I'm sure Jon knows this.

Is there any point continuing with this WB stuff?

[Faith_Fan]

I don't know. That's the problem. Honestly, I don't know if there's any point in continuing. It's like trying to do Angel campaign right now with the producers of Angel all busy with other tv shows and movies.

Last spring with Wonderfalls, I set up the Save Wonderfalls page on STC when the show was in danger because there was a long delay setting up SaveWonderfalls.com.

I received several fantastic emails from Todd Holland's assistant letting the fans running the various Wonderfalls sites know what to do, and keeping us up to date on the progress. They truly appreciated the fans support and I also received an email from Caroline Dhavernas thanking the fans. I never had to email the Wonderfalls staff and asked them what to do. They emailed me.

I've heard on the Wonderfalls DVD that the cast and producers talk about how great the fans have been and how mucht they appreciate the campaigning.

I'm not saying that the STC sources haven't been appreciative of what we're doing, but it just seems like there's this distance between the writers of TC and the fans. We're all here willing to do things, but maybe they've all just moved on and don't care anymore.

The biggest problem with the Save Angel campaigns was the indecisiveness in the beginning, due to RenewAngel.com's staff (who were all in contact with the ME writers) being told to not waste their money saving the show. Instead, Renew Angel decided to do nothing other than collect thank you messages to the Angel cast and crew.

It wasn't until SaveAngel.org and SavingAngel.com did exactly what the ME writers told them not to and starting fighting for the show.

So I don't want to be like Renew Angel and just toss in the towel, and throughout the Angel campaign it was like the cast and writers wanted to move on and weren't supporting us. Eliza and Julie Benz were the only two people really promoting the Save Angel campaigns in interviews in the early days of the campaign.

It'll be interesting to see what Eliza says tomorrow.