CANCELLATION ALERT: GCB, Pan Am, Missing, The River

ABC took over the news cycle on Friday with a flurry of pickups, renewals, and cancellations. The cancellations were all freshmen - GCB, Pan Am, Missing, and The River.

The biggest surprise on this list was GCB which lost a fight with other bubble hour long shows for a renewal. ABC was hoping the show would be the next Desperate Housewives when it launched after the series in March but the ratings were never all that impressive and they dropped heavily when they didn't have the Housewives lead-in. With other successful dramas and promising ones on the pilots, ABC just didn't have room for this one. Many thought it would be given a second chance but I think ABC made the right move here.

Also cancelled were three no brainers - dramas Pan Am, Missing, and The River. Pan Am got off to a great debut but bled audience members heavily in the timeslot that GCB eventually took over. So it was 0-for-2 with the 1960s period dramas last fall. Missing always did ok in total viewers for a tough slot for ABC - Thursdays 8pm - but it kept skewing older and older and ABC had much better options. The River did very little in its Tuesday midseason slot and didn't really fit with the rest of ABC's shows.