Almost two months ago I wrote about the best show on TV that you weren’t watching, Terriers. Â You were supposed to start watching, like, immediately. Â But apparently, you didn’t. Â And now they’ve gone and cancelled the show.
I hate procedurals. Â They bore me, mostly because I want to know about the people solving the crimes, not the crimes so much themselves. Â If I wanted to see crimes solved I’d read a newspaper or something. Â What I want in my television are characters worth caring about, and most procedurals spend too much time on the science (half of which they make up anyway, or at least use in unrealistic budgetarily unconstrained ways) and not enough on the people.
Terriers was about people. Â Sure, there were crimes. Â Some of them were wrapped up in an episode, and some arced over several episodes. Â But most the compelling part of the show was the people who were tangled up in the mess. Â And ultimately, the core of the drama on Terriers was that it went to great lengths to illustrate that all actions have consequences. Â Nothing in this show was wasted. Â By the end of its run of just thirteen episodes, everything bore fruit, every action affected someone or something, every decision had consequences.
At this point, you’ve got a few options to see this gem in its entirety. Â Head over to Amazon and buy it from video on demand, or get it from iTunes, or go find some less than legal avenue to download episodes… or wait for the DVD release, of which I hope it gets good treatment of extras and not just episodes on disc.
Of course, one of the biggest letdowns of the cancellation is that I won’t get to hear “Gunfight Epiphany” each week. Â (Sadly, the song is only for sale on iTunes, and I hate iTunes.)
Just know… you could have saved this show. Â But you didn’t. Â And for that, I like you a little bit less today than I did yesterday. Â I’ll get over it, but we lost one of the good ones here, and that’s on you.