There are a wide range of reasons why ABC decided to cancel Eastwick, chief among them (we’re guessing) were the terminally low ratings of the program. However, close analysis of why people decided to do just about anything other than watch Eastwick at 10 p.m. on Wednesdays bears one interesting piece of fruit: This is the fourth consecutive time that a program featuring Lindsay Price in a lead role has been quickly dumped by its network. Which leads to the question, what exactly is it about Lindsay Price that seemingly repels the average television viewer? And, with a track record like this, why do networks insist on hiring her?
Price first rose to marginal TV fame in the late nineties as Steve Sanders’s baby mama on the first incarnation of Beverly Hills 90210. She seamlessly worked her way into the ensemble cast, which signaled to television executives that she was ready to work her way up from a supporting role and into a starring one. Since then, though, it’s been nothing but bad luck and a series of high-profile failures for Price.
Her first chance at television stardom came in 2003, when she was cast as one of the leads on Coupling, NBC’s adapation of the highly popular BBC series. Price played the (unfortunately named) Jane Honda on the program, a show which NBC hoped would one day supplant Friends as a mainstay of their “Must See TV†lineup. However, the show never really gelled and was canceled after just ten episodes. Despite this setback, the future seemed bright for Price, and she was cast in a prominent role on ABC The WB’s Pepper Dennis in 2006.
To be fair to Price, most of the network’s marketing efforts for the show revolved around the scorching hotness of Sports Illustrated swimsuit-edition cover girl Rebecca Romijn. Sadly, the legions of Romijn’s hairy-palmed fanboys never tuned into this program about an ambitious television reporter, and the show was euthanized by ABC after just thirteen episodes, marking Price’s second consecutive television failure.
Despite the fact that audiences seemed to be having a hard time differentiating this program from its virtual clone over on ABC, Cashmere Mafia, Vulture hero Ben Silverman decided that the network had spent too much money creating and promoting the program to just pull the plug, so he made the bold (yet ill-fated) decision to add the show to the Peacock’s fall 2008 lineup. However, like most of NBC’s programming over the last few years, the show failed to catch on and rumors of its imminent demise began floating around last November, sending Price to the unemployment office once again.
Despite the fact that audiences seemed to be having a hard time differentiating this program from its virtual clone over on ABC, Cashmere Mafia, Vulture hero Ben Silverman decided that the network had spent too much money creating and promoting the program to just pull the plug, so he made the bold (yet ill-fated) decision to add the show to the Peacock’s fall 2008 lineup. However, like most of NBC’s programming over the last few years, the show failed to catch on and rumors of its imminent demise began floating around last November, sending Price to the unemployment office once again.
And now, of course, that leads us to Price’s most recent bomb (and second pairing with Rebecca Romijn), Eastwick. So, Vulture readers, tell us: Why don’t you want to watch anything that Lindsay Price stars in? She’s appeared in everything from comedies to romantic dramas to out-and-out chick bait, yet none of these paths seem to be connecting with you, the television aficionado. At this point, she’s well on her way to becoming her generation’s Paula Marshall, an actress who had a similar streak of television failures until she hooked up with Jay Mohr on Gary Unmarried over at CBS. Come to think of it, maybe a date with the Tiffany Network is what Price needs to finally succeed. Paging Chuck Lorre!