TV THOUGHTS, PART IV: HELP SAVE SO HELP ME TODD!!!

So last week, in what I had planned to be the final installment of my “TV Thoughts” series, I wrote of my extreme sadness and indignation that Mr. X and my favorite show, So Help Me Todd, was just cancelled by CBS. We’re crushed over it! Mr. X, who has very rarely watched any hour-long network show, just may be even hotter under the collar over that travesty than I am!

Full main cast of So Help Me Todd, with Skylar Astin and Marcia Gay Harden in the middle. The amusing duo is also in the pic at the top of this article, looking like they just got word of their show’s cancellation!

Later on in the day that my article was published, someone began a petition to help save the fabulous series. (I’m not saying that my writing was the impetus for it, but the timing certainly does fit.) I’m just thrilled about the action, no matter how it happened. If I knew how to get those things started, I would have begun it myself. That’s how desperate I am for this very worthwhile television show to continue!

So, before I tell you anything more, here is the link to sign the petition: www.change.org/p/save-so-help-me-todd-on-cbs. (You just enter your name and email. Then you can choose to stay anonymous, but your vote still counts. And don’t fall for it if they ask for a donation afterwards; just sign and get out of there! It’s a bit odd that they even ask people to “chip in” because change.org is a very reputable website. So no worries at all about signing the petition.)

What the petition page looks like.

As you may have noticed in my article last week, I suggested that “some other entity pick-up this wonderful show so we fans have something on TV to look forward to each week.” And now this petition gives me hope that CBS, or alternatively, another TV service might listen to us viewers.  (In the past, similar campaigns have helped to save many shows, including Family Guy, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Arrested Development, Community, Roswell, Friday Night Lights, Cagney and Lacey, Futurama, Designing Women, and Quantum Leap, going all the way back to the original Star Trek!!)

I hate to say it, (and I bite my tongue,) but I have a hunch that CBS did this on purpose so that they can move the show over to its streaming service, Paramount +, for which viewers have to pay, without people complaining about it. It’s just about the only service Mr. X and I don’t subscribe to; we, along with several of our pals, have had trouble with acquiring the few-day free trial of it in the past, so we gave up on it. (Trust me, Mr. X and I have tried!) It’s where CBS showed the Julianna Margulies-less The Good Wife spin-off, The Good Fight, in 2017. So I have a feeling the network’s plan is to make everyone relieved when they “pick Todd up,” rather than making them be disgruntled when they realize they now have to pay for it. (And yes, for the record, Mr. X and I will gladly fork over the dough, just to keep laughing.)

This the grateful Instagram post of Scott Prendergast, the creator of So Help Me Todd.

If you missed what I wrote aboutSo Help Me Todd last week, in my TV Thoughts, Part II article, here it is:

“Though not a sitcom, this is the funniest show on television, an assessment with which even the fussy Mr. X agrees. It’s basically a detective show, but the focus is the relationship, both personal and business, between detective Todd, played brilliantly by Skylar Astin, and his lawyer mother, played by Academy Award winner Marcia Gay Harden. Who knew she’s so funny??? It’s actually the most charming show, (which had us from the very first trailer two years ago,) and if you don’t watch it, you’re really missing out. ‘Nuff said.”

But I guess it really wasn’t enough, after all, because it got cancelled anyway. But remember—we, the public, have the ability to turn that decision around. So again, here’s where to sign the petition to save So Help Me Todd: www.change.org/p/save-so-help-me-todd-on-cbs.

Together, we fans can get it done!  Power to the people.