Tim Minear

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big Tim Minear fan. Actually, I never missed an airing of Angel, Firefly, Wonderfalls, or The Inside. He served as a producer on all of those, along with writing his fair share of episodes. Heck, I even remember watching some episodes of High Tide back in the day when Minear was just getting started as a writer. Still, news that Minear is being brought on as Consulting Producer for Standoff just boggles me.

Now, I think that Firefly and Wonderfalls were brilliant, and The Inside was solid. But that just means that ’I’ think someone should give Tim another show. The part I don’t get is that from the Fox perspective, these shows were all failures. They managed to last 11, 4, and 7 episodes. Three series, 22 episodes. What does a guy have to do to be shown the door?

I suppose the argument can be made that someone at Fox sees Minear’s talent and realizes that he does great work. So, they continue to give him things to work on. The problem with that is I don’t see it in their actions. And Wonderfalls is the most ridiculous example. That show never got a chance to grow. I really wish the powers that be over at Fox would nut up and send Tim packing. Not because I don’t want more Minear on my TV, but precisely because I do.

I have every confidence that he is going to make another great show somewhere down the line. And I’m almost as confident that this mystery show would be much better served on any other channel on the dial. I don’t know the details of Minear’s contract, or how long he is tied to them. But I think it would be in everyone’s best interest for everybody to go their separate ways. We’ve now seen how this goes three times, with a fourth coming. We don’t need to see it again.