Truly, truly terrible
Apparently 2016 isn't just a fan of killing off icons of the music industry — it's all about knocking off TV shows based thereon, too, as the year claims the scalp of Cameron Crowe's first small-screen effort, Roadies, after its inaugural season.
The Showtime and J.J. Abrams-produced series, starring Luke Wilson, Carla Gugino and Imogen Poots, was axed following the conclusion of its 10-episode run, joining on the 2016 kill-heap fellow music-industry efforts Vinyl — which had the massive pulling power of Martin Scorsese and HBO attached, and totally squandered it — and Denis Leary's Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll, which made it to two seasons on FX before getting the chop at the start of this month.
Nashville, starring Connie Britton, also very nearly suffered the same fate after ABC decided it had seen enough before the show was saved by cable network CMT, as The Hollywood Reporter notes, with "a greatly reduced role" for its lead.
As we explained at the time of its premiere, a massive failure on Roadies' part comes from the fact that it — and arguably Vinyl, Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll and several other terrible TV shows that tried and failed to capture the hustle and bustle of the music industry — is trying to sell a reality that doesn't actually exist, or certainly hasn't for several decades.
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Vinyl was obviously the most guilty of the three, actually setting itself 40 years in the past, but Roadies — despite its contemporary setting — was no closer to the mark in reflecting the experiences and hardships of the industry over the course of its arc.
Somewhat infuriatingly, given how genuinely mediocre this whole thing was and despite Crowe's assertion that the season is "a complete 10-hour tale of music and love", it's actually left us with an evidently never-to-be-resolved cliffhanger (pseudo-spoiler, if you care): Did Reg and Kelly get together?