While I was at a friend’s place for dinner tonight someone asked a hypothetical question: “if the TV only had 3 channels, which 3 channels would you want them to be?”. I replied “ABC, NBC and CBS… or maybe The CW, or Bravo… definitely ABC”. Then I came home and did the rounds of my favourite TV news websites and my heart broke; ABC has cancelled Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money and Eli Stone, effectively making me eat my words.

For years now ABC has been my favourite network. While Fox is loading up on action/adventure and CBS is mostly dependent on reality, ABC seemed to be making a point of scheduling intelligently scripted shows. They had tons of them, contributing to making last season (strike aside) one of the best in recent TV history.

But the cancellation of 2 of my favourite shows and 1 that I wish I’d had time to watch leaves me wondering what ABC’s offering this season that the other networks don’t have. The only shows they’ve kept on the air are tried and true ratings and/or Emmy winners and they haven’t given me a single new show to care about.

My TV schedule will certainly seem much bleaker without Pushing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money to give it a little colour.