Actors’ heads already rolling as chopping block stays busy

Unless you've been living in the "Rock of Love" house -- in which case, may God have mercy on your soul -- odds are you're having a better summer than Dash Mihok.

The actor has strung together a workmanlike career, appearing in movies that were hits with both critics ("Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang") and audiences ("The Perfect Storm").

All those efforts finally paid off with his first starring role in a series. His parents probably already had the premiere date circled on their calendar. And then he was fired. From "Cavemen." You know, the one based on the Geico commercials.

But while my heart goes out to him -- that pill has to be more bitter than the feud between former BFFs Lauren and Heidi on MTV's "The Hills" -- like always, I'm more concerned about how this affects me. And, in a trickle-down way, you.

The official start of the fall season is four weeks away -- some series will debut in less than three -- and so far, I can't tell you with any degree of certainty what to seek out. (Although I have some pretty good ideas about what to avoid.)

Of the 29 new shows, five are reality or newsmagazines that haven't been sent to critics, and at least 10, like ABC's "Cavemen," have changed cast members and will have to be reshot, more often than not with re-written scenes. In the case of "Cavemen," an entirely new episode will kick off the series when it debuts Oct. 2.

Even though it seems more widespread this summer, this is nothing new. It's called buyer's remorse, and it's perfectly understandable. To a point.

Over the past few weeks, I brought home several pairs of sandals before settling on the right ones for an upcoming beach vacation. But then I didn't travel to Malaysia to oversee each aspect of those sandals' production. Didn't inspect the materials or design. Didn't visit the sweatshop to make sure little Hafiz was really earning his 1,200 ringgits a month.

The networks, on the other hand, signed off on each part of every one of their series, from the script to the actors, the first time around. But they're still not satisfied.

Brooke Langton ("Friday Night Lights") replaced another actress as the attorney who helped free the main character, a wrongly imprisoned cop who rejoins the police force, on NBC's "Life."

The actor playing Lucy Liu's boyfriend on ABC's "Sex and the City" wannabe "Cashmere Mafia" was dumped in favor of Tom Everett Scott ("Saved").

Both the mother and father on The CW's "Life Is Wild," about a family that moves from New York to South Africa, have been replaced, by D.W. Moffett ("Hidden Palms") and Stephanie Niznik ("Everwood").

And Linda Park ("Star Trek: Enterprise") and Rob Estes ("Melrose Place") took over roles on ABC's "Women's Murder Club," about, well, a club of women who solve murders.

Merrin Dungey ("Alias") was fired from ABC's "Private Practice" even though more than 20 million people already saw her in the role of Addison's best friend when the pilot aired in May as an episode of "Grey's Anatomy."

Mae Whitman ("Arrested Development") lost her job on NBC's "Bionic Woman" when someone decided her character, the title heroine's little sister, would no longer be deaf. The fact that Whitman isn't actually deaf didn't seem to matter.

This summer, not even critical favorites are safe. The female lead of The CW's "Reaper," an action comedy about Satan's reluctant bounty hunter, was replaced with Missy Peregrym ("Heroes"). And the actor playing the father in The CW's "Aliens in America," about a family that reluctantly takes in a Pakistani exchange student, was given the boot in favor of Scott Patterson ("Gilmore Girls").

But hands down, the most troubled series, the one that makes you wonder why anyone bought it in the first place, is the CBS vampire-detective-in-love-with-a-mortal drama "Moonlight."

Critics said the premise sounded an awful lot like the vampire-detective-in-love-with-a-mortal drama "Angel." And in June, that show's co-creator, David Greenwalt, was hired to run "Moonlight."

Nothing, however, was done to appease older critics who said the show sounded an awful lot like the vampire-detective-in-love-with-a-mortal drama "Forever Knight."

Greenwalt reconfigured virtually every aspect of the series. By the time he was done, he had fired everyone but Alex O'Loughlin, who plays the vampire. Then, in a fitting end, Greenwalt fired himself.

My advice? Keep enjoying your summer as long as you can. It's shaping up to be an ugly fall.

Christopher Lawrence's Life on the Couch column appears on Mondays. E-mail him at clawrence@reviewjournal.com.