The great circle of network television life continues, with the recent loss of two underperforming series: Lumbering giant and one-time king of the primetime jungle The West Wing has finally succumbed to a long stretch of low ratings and the death of one of its leads. But like a lame-legged baby zebra struggling to keep up with the herd as a pack of predatory executives stealthily approach it from all sides, the cancellation of the heavily-promoted ABC comedy Emily's Reasons Why Not after just a single episode airing seemed particularly barbaric, and prompted a justification from ABC network head Steve McPherson:

ABC committed to the big promotional campaign before even seeing a script for the show, said ABC entertainment president Stephen McPherson on Saturday. The series turned out to be a dog creatively, he indicated.

"Once we saw it was not launching, we felt like unfortunately it was not going to get better and we had to make a change," McPherson said.

A comedy hit-starved ABC is now looking elsewhere, though McPherson's trigger-happy style is said not to be helping matters. Rumor has it the night of the Crumbs premiere, he deemed the new comedy a disaster 39 seconds into its opening credits, and insisted it be immediately replaced it with a Dancing with the Stars season 1 blooper reel before nervous programming executives managed to talk him down.

• ABC Defends Cancellation of Graham Comedy [AP]
• NBC Cancels 'West Wing' After 7 Seasons [AP]

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