Spaced. Extras. The Office. The Young Ones. Have you ever wondered why most British TV comedies end after only two seasons, which in brief British season numbers translates to a paltry 12 episodes? Blame Fawlty Towers. The 1975 series, starring John Cleese as an easily outraged hotel manager, is considered one of the funniest shows in British television history, and yet Cleese called it quits after only two series, before he ran out of ideas (which was the reason he gave for leaving Monty Python's Flying Circus). Released in a newly remastered boxed set today -- along with the remastered set of Rowan Atkinson's Blackadder -- it becomes painfully apparent that this is a show we would have gladly watched for another hundred episodes. After all, 12 episodes is only half of a regular American TV season, and we've watched full seasons of some pretty awful shows over the years.

NBC has announced that it has cancelled Southland before even a single episode of Season 2 aired in the show's terrible new Friday timeslot. Apparently the show was just too dark for the network to air at 9 PM, though that wouldn't have been a problem if there wasn't a giant chin taking up the 10 PM slot five nights a week. And could it really have been so much darker Season 1? Wasn't it pretty gritty and profanity-filled from the get-go? The only remotely encouraging news coming out of this is that John Wells (who executive produces and runs the show's production company) says that they are shopping around for a new home for this engagingly realistic cop drama.