ABC Shows the Door to 'Show Me' and 'Day Break'

Just days after ABC suits announced they had ordered six more episodes of the groundbreakingly bad game show "Show Me the Money," they realized they had just ordered six more episodes of the groundbreakingly bad game show "Show Me the Money" and, wasting no time, announced they were pulling it off the air, effective immediately.

Almost simultaneously, they realized another new series, "Day Break," was about a guy living the same lousy day over again each week. So they pulled that one as well.

"But I'm Taye Diggs!" the show's star said when he heard the news. (Yes, I made that up.)

"Show Me the Money" starred William Shatner as an overstuffed boob who, when not lobbing mind-numbingly stupid trivia questions at contestants, was apt to break into dance onstage with Million-Dollar Dancer babes -- each of whom held a scroll on which was written a dollar amount to be added to or subtracted from the contestant's pot o' dough.

In the hands of say, NBC, "Show Me the Money" might have flourished in a post-ironic way, as have IQ-squashing "Deal or No Deal" and "1 vs. 100."

But ABC can't seem to do irony of any kind with its reality fare, though it does feel-good home-gutting and has-been dancing reality shows like nobody's business.

Even so, "Money" started well enough; it bagged more than 12 million viewers when it aired right after "Dancing With the Stars" last month. But it immediately plunged into the 6-to-7-million-and- change range, where it hovered ever since.

When ABC announced it had ordered more episodes of "Money," it also revealed the show was being sent next month to Tuesday nights, where it would get stomped on by "American Idol." That future now awaits "America's Funniest Home Videos."

"Day Break," meanwhile, starred the aforementioned I'm Taye Diggs as Detective Brett Hopper, who is framed for shooting prosecutor Alberto Garza and, despite his best effort to solve the problem, wakes up every morning and has to start over.

"Day Break" opened with about 10 million viewers, also following "Dancing With the Stars," but nose-dived to about 4 million. Should you care to watch the unaired episodes in which Diggs lives the same darned day over again, you can do so at ABC.com. "Day Break" was ABC's solution to the question "What do you do with the 'Lost' time slot while 'Lost' is on hiatus?"

The network has decided "According to Jim" and "George Lopez" are the better answer.