Sometimes it seems there are just too many cable/satellite channels out there to possibly keep track of — and more than anyone could possibly need.
But in addition to giving viewers lots of choices, cable networks have also provided homes for shows that broadcast networks canceled too quickly. The latest case in point — "Pasadena," a show that hasn't aired an episode in four years.
Chances are you don't remember "Pasadena," given that Fox treated the show so poorly when it aired back in the fall of 2001. Fox aired only four of 13 episodes before yanking it off the air for that year's November sweeps, promising it would return in December. Then January. Then the spring of 2002. Then "eventually." Then on a Fox cable channel.
Never happened.
Four years later, viewers will finally find out whodunit when SoapNet airs all 13 episodes of "Pasadena" on Saturdays at 8 and 11 p.m.
The show remained in production after Fox pulled it. And executive producer Mike White made it a miniseries of sorts — the 13th and final episode wraps up the mysteries surrounding the wealthy and powerful Greeley family. And even if you never saw an episode, if you're a soap fan who has SoapNet on your cable or satellite system, it's worth tuning in to see — "Pasadena" is better than most of the new dramas on the networks this fall.
What with SoapNet pulling "Pasadena" out of mothballs, I'll do the same with the review of the show that ran on these pages back in 2001:
On the surface, "Pasadena" has all the trappings of the blockbuster soaps of the '80s like "Dallas" and "Dynasty" — a rich, powerful family that's used to getting its way while battling among themselves.
But (the) pilot is a dark, intriguing entree into what shows promise of being a very different sort of show. One that's shrouded in mystery.
Viewers are brought into the show by 15-year-old Lily McCallister (Allison Lohman), a bright, attractive teen who's a member of the latest generation of the Greeley family. Her grandfather (Philip Baker Hall) is a billionaire whose holdings include California's biggest newspaper, the Los Angeles Sun.
Lily doesn't suspect that her family has secrets until a seemingly crazed man enters her house one night, makes demands she doesn't understand and then kills himself. It all seems somehow tied to the disappearance of a woman years earlier.
And no one in her family is talking. Certainly not her father, Will (Martin Donovan), who's not doing much of a job hiding his affair; or her mother, Catherine (Emmy-winner Dana Delany of "China Beach"), a fragile woman who has to try to have everything perfect in order to survive.
The family includes her grandmother, Joan (Barbara Babcock), a controlling ice queen; her ambitious uncle, Robert (Mark Valley); her troubled, drug-addicted uncle, Nate (Balthazar Getty); her flighty aunt, Beth (Natasha Gregson Wagner); and her young brother, Mason (Christopher Marquette).
There are plots within plots and secrets within secrets in this rich-but-troubled family, and several of these characters make you want to know more about them. The interplay between Delany and Babcock is, all by itself, fascinating. And Delany has a scene that's amazing in which her character freaks out over some carpeting.
It's hard to tell where this is going, but the trip looks interesting.
Finally, we'll find out.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com