NBC's 'Chuck' leads the Save Our Shows pack

Fans don't want NBC to buck Chuck. The action dramedy, perennially hovering "on the bubble" between renewal and cancellation, won the most support in USA TODAY's 14th annual Save Our Shows poll.

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  By Chris Haston, NBC

  NBC's spy comedy Chuck, starring Zachary Levi and Yvonne Strahovski, was the top vote-getter in this year's USA TODAY Save Our Shows poll.

By Chris Haston, NBC

NBC's spy comedy Chuck, starring Zachary Levi and Yvonne Strahovski, was the top vote-getter in this year's USA TODAY Save Our Shows poll.

Forty-five percent of voters opted to keep the show around for a fifth season, despite a paltry 4.2 million viewers for this week's episode, which tied a series low.

The networks, weighing struggling incumbents against new pilots, will announce which make the cut in mid-May.

Adrienne Polis of Laramie, Wyo., calls Chuck "delightful" and says "the actors ... are perfect and the scripts are fun. The chemistry and banter reminds me of Buffy the Vampire Slayerand the old I Spy."

In all, about 47,000 viewers voted this year, heavily supporting Fox's Human Target (39% want it back) and CBS' CSI: NY (38%).

But a newer CBS spinoff, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, isn't feeling the love: Only 21% are supporters, and 32% want it sliced off the schedule. "I am really disappointed," says Ryan Cohen of Waukesha, Wis., who says the original was unique, but the spinoff fits "the mold of every other crime fighting show ... with no clever or unique aspect."

Not surprisingly, the most polarizing of this year's "bubble" shows was Two and a Half Men, whose future will rest on a replacement for Charlie Sheen, who was fired by Warner Bros. Thirty percent of voters want to keep it: "Send Charlie away to South America for a botched face lift and bring him back as some other actor who can play a womanizing booze hound ? it can't be that hard to cast," suggests Tacey Mullen of Olathe, Kan.

Detroit Free Press

Aisha Hinds and Erin Cummings' show, Detroit
1-8-7, got the most votes for the doomed show that viewers most want resurrected.

But 48% want it killed outright ? the highest percentage in the poll. (No. 2 was Bob's Burgers, which 44% want to drop; Fox renewed the animated series this month.)

Among spring tryouts that premiered too late for the poll, ABC's Body of Proof looks good for renewal, CBS' Chaos already has been yanked, and the jury's still out on two sitcoms, Fox's Breaking In and ABC's Happy Endings.

This year's poll offered two first-time questions. Which returning show would you most want gone? ABC's Desperate Housewives and Cougar Town were the top vote-getters.

And which doomed series would you most want to resurrect? That one also went to ABC, for gritty cop show Detroit 1-8-7. Says Motor City native Scott Howell of Wyandotte, Mich.: "It's great to see a show that showcases the city, yet is not a parody of the city or the people that live there."

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