Emily's Reasons Why Not

Emily's Reasons Why Not is a television series starring Heather Graham. The show, which was based on the novel of the same name, was cancelled by its broadcaster, ABC, after airing only one episode on January 9, 2006.

The series centered on Emily (Graham), an author of self-help books who is unable to find success in romance. In the premiere episode she ends a bad relationship and adopts a new rule for her romances: if she can list five reasons to break up with a guy then she does so. Emily gets help from her friends, among them Josh whose character is strongly based on gay stereotypes. The show was widely considered a less risqué copycat of Sex and the City.

In the first episode, she is convinced that the man she was dating was gay when he was actually a devout Mormon practicing chastity. His open virginity is presented through gay stereotypes, and his preferred sport, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is described as "the gayest sport there is" by one of Emily's male co-workers (and ex). The show drew fire from pro-abstinence groups for its inability to portray an abstinent person and relying on stereotypes of homosexuality to portray an intentional virgin.

Despite heavy promotion by both Sony and ABC, the show was pulled after the first episode due to drawing only 6.2 million viewers. Production was stopped after taping six episodes. ABC was said to have spent millions on promotion, including airtime, billboards and radio ads, and considered Emily to be the 'linchpin' of their post-football Monday night schedule. The promotion was so heavy and the cancellation so abrupt that some magazines found themselves carrying cover stories about a cancelled show. It was reported that ABC committed to the show and its promotion before seeing a script. After viewing it, ABC's entertainment president suggested that they considered the show lackluster and unlikely to improve.

Emily is one of the few primetime TV shows to last only one episode. One television critic said there are "over a million 'reasons why not' for this sorry show." Another, writing in the New York Times, said the cancellation was due in part to the extremely unappealing nature of the main character and the portrayal by Heather Graham.

In 2006, the show aired, in full, on Spain's pay-TV channel Cosmopolitan , on Sony Entertainment Television (Latin America) , and on ORF1 in Austria.

There are currently no plans to release Emily's Reasons Why Not on DVD.

Cast

• Emily Sanders (Heather Graham)
• Reilly (Nadia Dajani)
• Josh (Khary Payton)
• Glitter Cho (Smith Cho)

See also

• List of television series cancelled after one episode

Episodes

References

External links

• List of links to reviews of Emily's Reasons Why Not
• Washington Post article in which the programming chief at ABC discusses why the show was cancelled and why it got as far as it did.