Online reports say that Pushing Daisies has been canceled, although ABC hasn't confirmed it. If true, the show may be a late victim of the writers' strike. It was one of the few shows that didn't come back with new episodes after the strike was resolved. All of the shows that took that approach are doing poorly this season. Apparently networks didn't learn from the fate of Jericho that even critically acclaimed shows with good ratings can be killed off by a long hiatus. It won't surprise me if Chuck and Heroes have the same fate.

In other news, FOX has scheduled Joss Whedon's Dollhouse in the 9pm slot on Fridays beginning in February 2009. Some of you may recall that this is the same time slot FOX put Whedon's Firefly in, and the poor time slot combined with poor marketing spelled an early death for that show. If that's not enough bad luck, it's set to debut on Friday the 13th. And even worse, its lead in will be a genre show with declining ratings, namely The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The original plan was to air Dollhouse on Mondays at 9pm with the successful 24 as the lead in. As soon as I heard Joss was doing a new show for FOX, I had a very bad feeling about how the network would handle it. It's sounding like Firefly all over again.

Speaking of 24, the seventh season was supposed to begin in January 2008 but was postponed for one year due to the writers' strike. The seventh season is now expected to begin airing sometime in January or February 2009. Because of the eighteen or nineteen month gap between seasons, a two hour telefilm called 24: Redemption was made to bridge the sixth and seventh seasons. The telefilm will air on November 23rd.

The Middleman hasn't been officially canceled, but it looks like it's on an extended hiatus with a second season contingent on how well a planned DVD box set of the first season sells. That's something most shows never come back from, Family Guy being the only exception I can think of.