HOLLYWOOD Q&A

Q: Why did they cancel “Designated Survivor”? It’s just the sort of show we need more of on TV.

A: As is often the case, ABC had a lot of reasons for canceling “Designated Survivor,” the political thriller starring Kiefer Sutherland, a man who knows his way around a political thriller.

As usual, however, it came down to ratings. After a solid first season, the show’s ratings dropped significantly in its second year.

That drop may have had a lot to do with constant upheaval behind the scenes. The show went through four different head writers in its first two seasons, and season 3 would have been led by yet another one.

Variety magazine wrote a sort of post-mortem of the show after it was canceled, and it reported that the constant change was upsetting the show’s star (who also happened to be an executive producer). Sutherland was said to be frustrated with the fact that the instability in the writers’ room had led to instability in the storyline — that it was constantly shifting between being a political thriller and being a drama about the president’s family life.

There’s also the fact that, again according to Variety, Sutherland’s contract stipulated that if the show earned a third season, it would move production to Los Angeles (the first two seasons were produced in Toronto). The move would have added to the show’s already large budget.

Q: A couple of years ago I watched a movie called “The Care and Handling of Roses” starring Ann Jillian and Lee Horsley. She owned a flower nursery. It may have been on a regular TV channel and not cable. I keep looking for it to be on again — a nice love story. Where can I find it?

A: You might want to give up looking. The advent of the Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel have produced a bit of a boon for old telefilms, but unfortunately, 1996’s “The Care and Handling of Roses” wasn’t a Hallmark movie. It was made for CBS, and no one’s rushing to dig up its back catalog.

Another thing adding to its obscurity is the fact that it’s an Ann Jillian movie — that’s not a comment on the quality of her movies, just the quantity. She stands as a sort of telefilm legend, having starred in more than 20 of them over the course of her long career. Most notably, of course, she starred in 1988’s “The Ann Jillian Story,” portraying herself in a dramatization of her life and struggle with breast cancer.

Some of her old telefilms can still be found, but usually just the ones with an extra angle of some kind. For example, you can still pick up DVD copies of “MacShayne: Winner Takes All” (1994), but that’s primarily a Kenny Rogers movie, and he has a bigger and more enduring fan base (thanks to that music thing he does on the side).