ABC gets trigger-happy

PASADENA, Calif. — ABC Entertainment president Stephen McPherson doesn't have a reputation for being trigger-happy, but he did shoot down "Emily's Reasons Why Not" after it aired a grand total of once.

That sort of thing has happened before. What's really surprising, however, was that McPherson came closer to saying that, basically, the show was canceled because it stunk than any network executive I've heard in the past 16 years.

"Creatively, we just did not get the show where it needed to be. All of us tried really hard — producers, network, studio — but it just never got on track," McPherson said.

Nobody is saying that "Emily" was a great show — hey, the nicest thing I could say about it in my review was that it was "OK" — but ABC has worse comedies on the air right now. (Have you seen "Freddie"?)

But all we saw was the pilot. And, according to McPherson, subsequent episodes were worse, not better.

"You have to kind of believe in (a show)," he said. And while he thought creator/executive producer Emily Kapnek "really had a voice" and star Heather Graham "was a terrific talent," efforts to build on that failed. "Unfortunately, given some, I think, misfires and mishaps along the way, we didn't get it there."

The show did poorly in the ratings its first week out and faced competition from the Golden Globes and the premiere of "24" a week later, so McPherson decided to cut his losses and cancel "Emily." Plus, he was worried that bad ratings for "Emily" at 8 p.m. would hurt "The Bachelor" at 9 p.m.

"You have to kind of measure your patience based on how you believe in the creative," McPherson said. "And there we felt like, unfortunately, it was not going to get better. And we needed to make a quick change."

Which sounds surprisingly honest. Except . . . few critics (including me) are entirely buying that explanation.

ABC spent literally millions of dollars promoting "Emily's Reasons Why Not." And McPherson's explanation — "Well, we had spent the majority of the big long-lead advertising money before we even saw a script" — was, quite frankly, disingenuous at best.

Something else was going on here. Whether it had to do with the fact that Sony was producing the series (not ABC or one of its sister companies) or with clashing personalities or one of the many agendas that weave through Hollywood, we may never know.

ABC HAS NOT GIVEN UP on "Jake In Progress," the show that aired (once) right after "Emily" and also got yanked off the air.