Eliza Dushku

Well, so much for the power of the boobs. Fox may end up cancelling "Tru Calling" after all.

My fiancee has this theory about the "power of the boobs," in which an ample chest will make things happen for a well-endowed woman. And that has to have been the operative principle behind Fox’s initial decision last spring to renew Eliza Dushku’s supernatural series while giving the axe to so many other worthy genre shows.

Why else other than Dushku’s considerable, er, charms, would Fox pick up her “Tru Calling” for a second season, while cancelling its other promising science-fiction series? “Firefly” and “Wonderfalls,” for instance, generated ratings comparable to “Tru” — which is to say ratings that were middling, not great, but not truly horrible, either.

But Fox killed “Firefly” and “Wonderfalls” after just a handful of episodes, while letting “Tru Calling” ride out a full first season and then giving the series notice of a pickup for a second. Might the power of Dushku’s boobs have been at work here?

OK, before my e-mail box becomes totally flooded with messages accusing me of rampant sexism, in discussing the role an actress’ breasts play in network scheduling decisions, let me say that my tongue has been (largely) planted in my cheek.

While Ms. Dushku is clearly a very attractive young woman, she also proved — both as Faith on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and in the title role of “Tru Calling” — to be a good, talented actress. In fact, on the latter, she deserves a lot of credit for carrying the show.

But I also have to admit that the firmness with which my tongue is not planted is not absolute. Because while Ms. Dushku is a good actor, so was Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Sean Maher and the other players on “Firefly” as was Caroline Dhavernas and the rest of the cast of “Wonderfalls.”

So I would say that maybe there was something to be said for the power of the boobs except Fox has apparently decided to lower the boom on “Tru Calling,” too.

After announcing last spring that the show about the morgue worker who relives her days to help dead people would come back this fall, the network more recently said the series’ second season would not premiere as planned Nov. 4.

Its future was further thrown in doubt when Jason Priestly — who joined the “Tru Calling” cast toward the end of the first season as a nemesis to Dushku’s Tru Davies — has agreed to take a role on another Fox series, “Quintuplets.”

Six second-season episodes already have been produced, and all has not yet been lost. Fox hasn’t put out an official word of cancellation. And even more significantly, a DVD set of Season 1 is due out Nov. 30.

The animated “Family Guy” was canceled, only to be resurrected because of strong DVD sales. Likewise, Fox might be looking for the same thing to happen with “Tru Calling.” Executives could be convinced, if enough people run out to buy the Season 1 sets, to go ahead and put Season 2 on the air after all.

But if Fox does decide to pull the plug on “Tru Calling,” it will be a true shame.

Whether or not it won favor in the network executive suites based on its star’s sex appeal, the fact is it was a good show. It wasn’t a great show; not yet, anyway. But it had potential. It had a solid base and room to grow. That’s especially true because Jane Espenson, who worked with Dushku on “Buffy,” was set to take the reins in “Tru Calling’s” new season as co-executive producer.

A disciple of the Joss Whedon school of television, Espenson would have given “Tru Calling” that extra crackle its dialogue needed to take it to the next level.

Now we might never know. Because once again, a television network simply couldn’t show the patience required to grow a show. You would never have predicted its future greatness from the early episodes of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” for instance. Series need time to get their legs underneath them, and the networks are not giving them that time.

As the get-rich-quick potential of the Reality TV fad continues to fade, the networks are going to find they’re going to have to return to the practice of giving their series that time to grow, otherwise they’re simply going to find it hard to put anything on the air.