With so many TV shows premiering every day, that means an unfortunate few are often canceled before their time. Did They Deserve Better takes a look at some of these unfortunate shows that were canceled and answering the question if they deserved to last longer than they did. First up in the series is Ringer. Ringer debuted on the CW on September 13, 2011. Ringer was canceled on May 11, 2012, airing for one season and a total of 22 episodes. Ringer stars Sarah Michelle Gellar in a dual role playing twin sisters, Bridget and Siobhan. After becoming sober, Bridget becomes a witness to a murder. Bridget not trusting the FBI to keep her safe from the murderer escapes to her estranged twin sister, Siobhan. As the two reconnect, Siobhan suddenly goes missing and Bridget realizing an opportunity to remain safe assumes her sister’s identity. But as Bridget starts to settle into Siobhan’s life, she realizes her sister’s life isn’t as perfect as it seemed and that she’s no safer than before.

My Overview Thoughts: I was drawn to Ringer for one reason and one reason only. Her name is Sarah Michelle Geller. If you saw Buffy the Vampire Slayer you can understand why I would watch anything she’s ever been in. Whether good or bad, she always shines. So I chose Ringer as the first show for this series because no matter if the show sucked or not I trusted that Sarah Michelle Geller would give a good performance and indeed she did, in fact, two good performances. Ringer is practically a soap opera much like many CW shows. The premise itself lets you know what you’re in for. A melodramatic show with characters making terrible decisions that you won’t be able to stop watching it. It checks all the plot points of the CW must have for all its shows.

The one thing that Ringer has over other CW shows is its performances. Other than SMG, you have Mike Colter before becoming Luke Cage, Ioan Gruffudd of Fantastic Four fame, and Zoey Deutch who’s been in a lot of great movies recently like Zombieland 2 and Everybody Wants Some. Aka a long way of saying this cast is stacked and is strong, much stronger than some other CW shows. The show is fast-paced, small twists and bigger twists throughout the season made it easy to watch. Some of the twists felt like they could have spanned throughout multiple seasons if the show had run longer. This happens to make the show more and more contrived and convoluted. Though it always maintains to be entertaining whether that be because of its outlandish plots or bad CGI, Ringer never leaves you bored.

Does It End on a Cliffhanger?: The series despite its early cancellation ended decently for the most part in my opinion. There are obviously some loose strings that were never resolved, but I found most of the character arcs and season-long arcs were completed nicely. The show planted seeds for what they wanted to do in season two, but there were luckily no real cliffhangers. Just plots that would have been nice to see all the way through in future seasons.

Cancellation: Ringer debuted with decent ratings when the show first premiered. The pilot episode drew 2.84 million viewers, a 1.2 Adults 18-49 demo rating, and a 1.6 in The CW’s target demo of women 18-34. The CW initially ordered 13 episodes, but The CW eventually picked it up for 9 more episodes most likely due to the positive ratings and demos. After the first 10 episodes aired, the show went on hiatus for three months. The break is what essentially killed the show. Ringer’s ratings and viewership dwindle after the holiday break. The audience never returned and the show was subsequently canceled. The CW President Mark Pedowitz noted after Ringer’s cancellation “I don’t think anything went wrong with Ringer. I was happy it was there…It just could not find the 18-34 demo we hoped.”

Did It Deserve Better?: That’s a loaded question. And it can be framed in different ways. Did it deserve better as a CW show? Or a network TV show in general? Is Ringer a great show? No, it’s not I wouldn’t even say it’s a good show. But it is an entertaining show lead by the wonderful Sarah Michelle Geller. Looking at other CW shows that were on at the time Gossip Girl, 90210, The Vampire Diaries, Ringer fits right in. Those shows each have 5 seasons or more. I wouldn’t have minded seeing a few more ridiculous seasons of Ringer (and more of Sarah Michelle Geller, of course) and where it could have gone. So, yes, I believe it deserved better. To some degree.

I want to introduce ratings for this series, but not the usual 1-5 star rating system or letter grades. Inspired by YouTube movie reviewer Jeremy Jahns, (check him out, he’s great!) I created my own rating system for this series. It is as follows…

• Who Thought This Should Be Aired?
• Already Forgotten
• Guilty Pleasure
• It Had Potential
• I Want 8 More Seasons of This.

Rating: I give Ringer, a Guilty Pleasure rating. It was an entertaining watch, but it wouldn’t have become the next Game of Thrones or anything like that. If it sounds like it piques your interest, maybe check it out.

I have a lot of shows planned for this series. Here are a few of them that I have planned for the series, not all because I do want to keep some of them as surprises.

• Terminator: The Sarah Conor Chronicles
• Pushing Daisies
• Dead Like Me
• Don’t Trust The B*tch In Apartment 13
• Good Girls Revolt

But also, I want recommendations for this series. So if you have a show that you like that was canceled (can’t be more than 3 seasons long) and want to see me watch and cover it here, comment it down below. I will probably add it to the list. Just don’t recommend Firefly, I’m watching that for another series. But everything else is welcome.