the wonder has fallen

Gene notes that in the wake of Fox’s sudden and immediate cancellation of the wonderful series Wonderfalls, they’ve already excised all mention of the show from their web site (there used to be a Wonderfalls-specific site at http://www.fox.com/wonderfalls but that URL now redirects to the Fox home page).

Wow. They certainly didn’t waste any time.

First of all, I’m glad I visited the site yesterday; I hadn’t been to it previously. I had suspected Fox might do this, so I wanted to see if there was any media there that might be worth hanging onto, and indeed there was a cute (if low-resolution) Flash movie of the music video for the theme, which I found in my cache and copied to another folder in order to keep.

And I also found some extremely limited information still available at the FoxNow site. Most intriguing of all, though, is the following:

Performance Highlights:

WONDERFALLS had a solid sampling in its first 2 weeks, averaging 4 million viewers. The series delivers its best performance among teens on Friday night, ranking #1 in its time period. WONDERFALLS is also popular with young men, ranking #2 in its time period among Men 18-34.

Source: Nielsen, NTI 03/12-03/19/2004

So on their site, they claim successful ratings. But in their decision to axe the show, they cite abysmal ratings. It’s like listening to the Bush administration. Oh wait, it’s Fox. Same thing.