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Sandbox / Screwed By The Network Wick Check

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Screwed by the Network tends to attract complaining, or examples where the screwing is questionable if it even qualifies (or is even as simple as "the show failed due to no fault of the network"). This wick check is intended to check how exactly it is used and seem if the term needs to be tightened up or changed any.

Wicks Checked: 57/57 (2 of which are from the little used redirect Screwed By The Studio) (For Wicks with multiple examples, the first was used).

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     Correct Use, ideally cited with evidence: 6/ 57 
  • Trivia.Longmire: Screwed by the Network: Despite being one of their most popular shows, A&E cancelled it after the third season due to being too expensive and having viewers too old for their desired demographic. But it was later renewed on Netflix and ran for three more seasons with the sixth slated to be the final one. A bit shaky seeing as "the show was too expensive" is a legitimate problem, but the article states that the network gave a more bogus reason... so I'll let it slide.
  • Trivia.Just The Ten Of Us: Screwed by the Network: Despite earning decent ratings as part of ABC's TGIF block and frequently winning its time slot, the show was abruptly cancelled in the spring of 1990, due to ABC wanting all shows in the TGIF block to be packaged by Miller-Boyett Productions, as was the case with fellow programs Family Matters, Full House, and Perfect Strangers. This is what a good Screwed by the Network entry should look like, this is my model.
  • Trivia.Caprica: Screwed by the Network: Syfy extensively meddled around with the schedule and support for the show despite good ratings, and the single 18 episode season before the show was unceremoniously cancelled was aired in the span of 1.7 years, from 2009 to 2011, before the last episodes were completely canned and released on DVD instead. This seems to be good.
  • Trivia.Land Of The Lost 1991: Screwed by the Network: Despite being popular enough to warrant a third season, the show was cancelled due to Disney's decision to run its own programming after their purchase of ABC. It is... acceptable.
  • Trivia.Angel: Screwed by the Network: The series was suddenly canned to the confusion of those making the show, as it was consistently high-quality with high ratings. The reason the network gave was even more confusing: the show was so popular and good that they wanted the series to end on a high note instead of letting it die in obscurity. Possibly the only example of a show being canceled (ostensibly) because everyone liked it too much. Sounds good.
  • Screwed by the Network: As stated on the main page, Teletoon aired all 26 episodes in April 2015 for a single week before taking the show off their air without any reruns or mention of the series since. Definitely a rather comical screwing, but should not mention the main page.

     Sounds correct, but without evidence: 6/ 57 
  • Trivia.The 7 D: Screwed by the Network: Season 2 barely got much notice when it aired and Disney XD hardly showed much interest in advertising the show as this was during the time when the series was ending. Following after it ended, most of its reruns had disappeared permanently. Example sounds correct but nothing is really cited beyond saying it got little notice and no longer reruns.
  • Trivia.Rainbow Butterfly Unicorn Kitty: Screwed by the Network: After the sneak peek premiere aired on Nickelodeon the show would automatically be passed down to Nicktoons, with new episodes premiering weeknights at 9 PM, causing its ratings to plummet hard. The emphasis is a bit much but the example seems alright.
  • Trivia.Futari Wa Pretty Cure Screwed by the Network: YTV, despite paying for the dub, put it in really bad time slots and only aired the first 12 episodes for the first few months. At least they managed to complete the first season. This is one of the reasons the series wasn't able to get off the ground in the American continent when it came to TV broadcasts. Nothing to add really.
  • Trivia.My Knight And Me: Screwed by the Network: The show had pretty good advertisement, and a nice 5 PM slot for its first few weeks... until it was suddenly taken off the air for weeks and then moved to Boomerang. VERY torn on keeping it here, as no information about performance or ratings are given.
  • Trivia.Finders Keepers: Screwed by the Network: Despite pulling in higher ratings than Double Dare, production stopped after its lone season in syndication. Repeats moved to Nickelodeon halfway through the 1988-89 season, and both versions stopped airing there in 1990. Only when GaS was created did Nickelodeon even bother airing the series again, and it has neither been reran since 2006 nor is it available for streaming anywhere. Even still, a good chunk of the run never aired on GaS. Seems to be a screwing, but no explanation is given as to why.
  • Trivia.Larry Boy The Cartoon Adventures: Screwed by the Network: When aired on SAT-7 Kids in the Middle East, they never aired reruns and pulled it from their schedule immediately after the show's final episode was aired. '''Not much explanation on whether this was standard network behavior or a screwing, but fair enough to be here at least.

     Complaining, even if usage is correct: 4/ 57 
  • Trivia.Blaze And The Monster Machines: Screwed by the Network: Though the show is generally popular in ways, it falls into this now and then. The amount of times it runs daily has gotten fewer later into the show's run, and as of now, it only airs on Nick Jr. channel about two to six times a day, whereas it only airs once on Nick Jr. on Nick (shared with Ryan's Mystery Playdate) in favor of consecutive reruns of PAW Patrol, which became the only show aired on the block (aside from single reruns of one other show) throughout the summer of 2019. Thankfully, it is the only pre-2019 first-run show other than PAW Patrol and the Un-Cancelled Bubble Guppies that has not been moved to the Nick Jr. channel for new episodes. This has an Adored by the Network entry above it, and mostly just seems to exist to be upset that the show "only" shows 2 to 6 times a day.
  • Trivia.The Terminator: Screwed By The Studio: To a small extent. While the film was a hit, James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger were both convinced that Orion Pictures did not believe enough in the film to give it a strong advertising campaign. Both Cameron and Schwarzenegger vowed never to work for the studio again. Very weasel wordy and basically impossible to prove given that the film was a smash hit and became a pop culture icon...
  • Trivia.Sinbad Legend Of The Seven Seas: Screwed by the Network: If you were around at the time, do you recall seeing even a single advertisement for this film? Also a ZCE, but used primarily to whine.
  • Screwed by the Network: The series suffered from much of this by CITV, including delaying one of the episodes by a week with a repeat filled in its place. In addition, there has yet to be a DVD release in North America, even though the show was aired on Toon Disney over there. They delayed an episode... and that's it? Not getting a DVD release has more to do with Keep Circulating the Tapes too.

     ZCE: 12/ 57 

     Misuse: 19/ 57 
  • Trivia.Abby Hatcher: Screwed by the Network: After almost eight months of airing on the main network, the show flopped and was sent to the 24/7 channel for the rest of the run. Episodes now air Sundays at 10:00 AM as part of its "Girls Rule Sundays" programming. If the show flopped, it wasn't exactly screwed by the network, the network cutting its losses is hardly a screwing.
  • Characters.Exalted Other: Screwed by the Network: Again-overview, no writeup whatsoever. I was torn to put this here or in the ZCE section, but this is wicked as a character trope, when it's a Trivia item.
  • Trivia.Star Wars Dark Horse: Screwed by the Network: The comic was cancelled after a scant 20 issues because of Dark Horse Comics losing the license to publish Star Wars comics after Disney purchased Lucasfilm and halted any further production of new Star Wars Legends story material as of 2014. Should be Screwed by the Lawyers, as the cancellation was related to a licensure problem, unless I have missed something.
  • Trivia.Kitty Is Not A Cat: Screwed by the Network: Disney Channel picked up the show in a few territories, and at first treated it pretty well in their selection of countries, with lots of advertisement and slots on the schedule. Eventually though, the show would cease airing on all Disney feeds by 2020 with no reason as to why, and with the worst timing ever as season 2 never got to be aired at all. Same problem as Trivia.Molly Of Denali as no cancellation reason is given, but this is outright misuse as it was treated well by the network.
  • Trivia.The Cape: Screwed by the Network: Cut from 13 to 10 episodes, then canceled, due to ratings for the first episode being okay, then tanking for subsequent episodes. The show did badly and got cut down and canned as a result, not a screwing.
  • Trivia.The Dark Crystal: Screwed By The Studio: Averted. During post-production, Lew Grade sold his company ITC to new management who saw no faith in the product, especially after poor test screenings. Fearing that ITC would bury the film and write off their investment in it, Jim Henson personally bought the rights to the picture and paid for its completion. Trivia cannot be played with, so this is a misuse.
  • Screwed by the Network: It went to war by itself against an army of animated series that were breathing new life into a dying network and unsurprisingly lost. The show failed due to not being able to compete with other shows rather than an intentional screwing.
  • Trivia.Sponge Bob Square Pants S 1 E 12 The Chaperone Employee Of The Month: Screwed by the Lawyers & Screwed by the Network: Due to Nickelodeon refusing to pay royalties, the songs "Agent Woodrow" and "Mavericks" had to be replaced on the Home Sweet Pineapple and Season 1 DVDs. Double examples are bad practice. This should probably just be Screwed by the Lawyers instead.
  • Trivia.Zak Storm: Screwed by the Network: The Discovery Family Channel has declined in popularity after taking over from its temporary replacement channel, The Hub, resulting in Zak Storm being virtually unheard of. It also hasn't aired in France, either. This seems more like "the show is floundering because its network is floundering."
  • Trivia.The Get Along Gang: Screwed by the Network: More a case of Screwed by the company that owns the characters, as in 2007, along with The Littles, S'More Entertainment was planning to release the complete series on DVD. However, American Greetings was successfully able to block the release completely. However, no explanation was given for why they blocked the release (it could've been related to the revival plans for the characters at the time, which were eventually canned). In any case, Mill Creek Entertainment eventually released the full series.note  Screwed by the Lawyers
  • YMMV.El Caso: Screwed by the Network: Whether intentional or not, TVE's programming strategy with the show was baffling to say the least. The series premiered shortly before the Easter holidays — a sure-fire way to lose viewers on the second episode —, the same night that a UEFA Champions League match that could (and did) go to overtime was played, and TVE stubbornly kept it on its Tuesday night slot despite relatively low ratings and strong competition from Allí abajo and La que se avecina. It eventually was cancelled two weeks after the end of its only season. This WOULD be a good example... but for some inexplicable reason, it's on the YMMV page, the trivia page even acknowledges that it is.
  • Trivia.Sheamus :Adored by the Network/Screwed by the Network: Apparently his inconsistent booking could be attributed to being well liked by Stephanie McMahon and Triple H and not being liked at all by producer Kevin Dunn. This entry is a total mess, should be split up into two much clearer entries instead of one merged disaster.
  • The Drew Carey Show: Screwed by the Network: The show was a ratings hit so ABC gave it a three-season renewal after the sixth season. Then ratings started to fall during the eighth but ABC found themselves contractually obligated to produce and pay for two full seasons of a show they didn't want. The network, realizing that the contract didn't obligate them to broadcast the show at a decent time, got back at the show by putting it in strange time slots and burning off the final season during the summer of 2004. So... the show was floundering , and they stuck the last season into unfavorable time slots as a result, only after it started doing badly? That's hardly screwing, more of a Mercy Kill really.
  • Trivia.Red Dwarf: Screwed by the Network: Inverted with one of their PBS clients. KTEH 54 in California had a deal with BBC that essentially stated that they could air whatever got sent to them... and thanks to a clerical oversight, they got sent all of season 8 ahead of the BBC air date. While they would have been well within their rights to declare the international premier of season 8 on their station, they instead waited until after BBC had aired their episodes - a move that resulted in Craig Charles flying down to do several pledge drives for them. Which, in turn, led to numerous pledges just to hear Craig call them a smeghead on the air. Trivia cannot be played with, misuse.
  • Trivia.Nickelodeon Fanon: Screwed by the Network: Elijah (Eli Ninja) managed to screw over an entire network called Nickelodeon XD when he was still Dude 2000. As of February 8th, 2015, this was subverted. But now (with most of it's archival programming shipped off to Nick GAME (which has since been renamed "RaGE Game", but had the original name revived as a block) and ToonNick PLUS (which has since been renamed "ToonNick TOO"), that only left the live-action programs upon Nickelodeon XD's relaunch. This makes my brain hurt... trivia cannot be played with again, but the networks involved are all entirely fictional and invented by the users in question for fun. I'm going to go with Misuse...?
  • Trivia.Tama And Friends: Screwed by the Network: WFGX, a former independent-then-The WB-then independent station (now MyNetworkTV) licensed in Fort Walton Beach, Florida had the syndication rights to the 4Kids English dub but it wasn't shown in the areas of Mobile, Alabama and its neighboring Baldwin County, Alabama despite being part of the Mobile-Pensacola TV market. note  They had a valid reason to not pick up the show... so it's not a screwing and has nothing to do with how it did.
  • Trivia.Reflets D Acide: Screwed by the Network: Due to sales of the official comic book adaptation diminushing gradually after each issue, Delcourt (the publisher) requested the authors to stop at the 10th issue. They had to choose between summarising the whole end of the webseries (the last quarter of episode 14, the whole episodes 15, and the whole 16note ) in the last issue, or making a 10th issue with the same pacing that the previous ones but which abruptly cuts at the end of the 16th chapter of episode 14. Since the former option would betray the spirit of the project (using the entirety of the dialogs, puns, etc.), they choose the latter. Yet another "Did badly, got canned as a result". Not an intentional screwing.
  • Trivia.Buddy Complex: Screwed by the Network: And screwed hard. The series was originally going to have a full-length 2nd season around 12 or 13 episodes, but low ratings and even lower sales of the DVD/Blu-ray discs caused it to get cut down to only two episodes. Show do bad, show get reduced presence as result of do bad. Tale as old as time.
  • Trivia.Its The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown: Screwed by the Network: By ABC during the 2010s. Although they aired it annually, they didn't really promote it much, and when they aired the uncut version combined with You're Not Elected Charlie Brown, they basically treated it as filler material on the schedule. Additionally, unlike the promotions for the 50th anniversary of A Charlie Brown Christmas, ABC did nothing to celebrate Great Pumpkins same Milestone Celebration the following year. From 2017 onwards, there was virtually no promotion of any of its airings, and the ratings saw a significant drop, though of course they still promoted its' rival special Toy Story of Terror a bit (though this is Justified as Disney, owner of Pixar, also owns ABC). Airing a 50+ year old respected classic holiday special less than usual is hardly a good example. Also includes a justificiation, which doesn't apply to Trivia.'

     Unclear, Indexes, References, and Potholes: 10/ 57 
  • Trivia.Blastphamous HD: Screwed by the Network: YouTube's demonetization (due to his frequent cursing and sexual jokes) and copyright strikes (due to his reaction content) have plagued Maurice's channels. In 2018, his main reaction channel, BlastphamousHDTV, was terminated, and only a month later, Maurice was pressured into deleting many of the backup copies of videos on his second channel, meaning that hundreds of his videos have been lost forever. Doesn't really fit nicely into any other section, it's not blatant misuse but it's not a clearly correct example either.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: Screwed by the Network: The show gets cancelled because the network didn't give it enough promotion or airtime, or they straight-up hated it and used scummy tactics to justify its cancellation. Just it being indexed on its supertrope.
  • Trivia.China Uncensored: Screwed by the Network: After YouTube removed ad revenue on videos with controversial content in August of 2016, the show had to open a Patreon account in order to help keep their show running. Another Youtube Example, hard to classify as the trope predates the concept of "Video hosting platforms as networks"
  • AnyoneCanDie.Live Action TV: V (2009): Doesn't have much in the way of this, until the second season finale, wherein they really make up for lost time. Three major characters you'd expect to have immunity (they seemed integral to arcs that weren't quite over, so not expendable yet even if their character types don't always make it to the Grand Finale) die sudden and unexpected deaths. Then the show doesn't get renewed, making the episode that killed half the cast and left Earth in its Darkest Hour becomes the official ending. The only reason this isn't in the complaining folder is that is (allegedly) an example of Anyone Can Die, not Screwed by the Network, which is merely potholed.
  • Trivia.Ahmed And Salim: Screwed by the Network: YouTube eventually forced SugarZaza to stop producing Ahmed & Salim, on account of their content being wildly offensive and palatable for doubling as terrorist propaganda. Although, it is partly the creators' fault too, as they were warned about this very thing happening if their future episodes became too offensive and they chose to ignore it completely. Another web creator example, not helping that the creators ignored the warning to watch themselves.
  • RecycledInSpace.Live Action TV: Space: Above and Beyond is Black Sheep Squadron IN SPACE! (And also WITH EARLY CANCELLATION! Because they were WITH FOX!) Pothole on a JFF page.
  • Creator.Chris Savino: Around 2005, Savino began development for a pilot called Adventures in Milk and was already in talks with a television network to have it picked up as a series. However in a final update from 2008, Chris announced that the pilot had been cancelled for what executives told him was "a change in their channel's direction". Pothole.
  • StillbornFranchise.Live Action TV: Kamen Rider Dragon Knight suffered from this. Poor toy sales and ratings (partly due to Screwed by the Network) plus financial troubles with Adness Entertainment meant that any possible follow-up adaptation was dead. It didn't help that the final two episodes didn't even air on TV, only online. Just references the trope.
  • MilestoneCelebration.Live Action TV :2015 was the 10th anniversary of both the unfortunately abrupt finale of the notoriously Darker and Edgier reboot attempt Ultraman Nexus, and the beginning of its successor Ultraman Max. The then-incumbent series, Ultraman X, had crossover episodes with both series. Nexus also saw a reunion of the cast and crew and a miniseries on the show's making. Just a pothole.
  • WesternAnimation.Atomic Puppet: However, this did not save the series from being cancelled after only a single season due to being Screwed by the Network, although the show still managed to end with a bang in its two-part status quo-shaker "The Big Shift". Just a mention of the it.

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