As you all know by now, ABC failed to pick up three of its sophomore shows -- Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, and Eli Stone -- for a full season, essentially ending each after 13 second-season episodes (in other ABC news, Scrubs will start on Tuesday, January 6, and Life on Mars gets four additional episodes for its new post-Lost timeslot, which starts on January 28).

Daisies and DSM (and Private Practice, which is being moved to Thursdays after Grey's Anatomy in the "duh" move of the season) were both held back after the writers' strike last year and didn't come back until the fall. Seems like a logical thing to do, right? I mean, the shows had growing followings but still very modest ratings. ABC learned from the CBS Jericho disaster that holding a freshman show for any period of time will sink the ratings. Turns out, though, that holding them for even longer will sink the ratings even further. Who knew?

All sarcasm aside, though, ABC was in a tough spot. What could they have done differently? More thoughts after the jump.