CBS yanks 'Three Rivers'

Agreed. "Three Rivers" had some potential as a concept but it was poorly executed from the start and never really improved in any substantive way, particularly when it came to creating living and breathing characters. Nothing in the writing made any of them distinct.

Part of my job is to advocate on behalf of quality shows, but I didn't do that with "Three Rivers" because it was never great, as noted in my initial review (www.post-gazette.com/.../1002382-67.stm). We did write about it a lot because a) that's the convention for locally-set shows (see New Jersey Star-Ledger coverage of "The Sopranos" or New Orleans Times-Picayune coverage of "K-Town") and b) Local readers are highly interested in locally-set shows as evidenced by phone calls, emails, Nielsen ratings and Web hits. Much of our coverage of "Three Rivers" was about how much of a clusterbotch it was as recounted in today's obit for the show (www.post-gazette.com/.../1017647-67.stm)

But I was happy to be able to shine a light on organ donation campaigns in the premiere day package of stories. Hopefully the show at least had some positive impact that way.