It was a show of fervent devotion to a songwriter whose official debut album, "Channel Orange," was released just two weeks ago and whose songs aren't radio-ready jingles.
Its ratings were always in the modest-to-poor range, low enough that it would have barely broken the Top 200 on broadcast television and by all conceivable measures would have been canceled before its first season was finished, but at the center of the show's fervent core audience were many of HBO's top people.
"Chuck" is a good poster child for this list, which is all about shows with fervent but smallish fan bases -- these are all shows that, for one reason or another, deserve wider attention but in many cases weren't big hits when they first aired.
While the abuse crisis will forever remain a shameful and irrevocable part of its history, the church has shown its fervent commitment to preventing this tragedy from ever occurring again.
(Just imagine if "My So-Called Life, Arrested Developmentnt" or "Veronica Mars," all shows with fervent followers but low viewer numbers, had been able to benefit from the online buzz generated by their legions of devoted fans).
Why do you think this show inspires such fervent devotion?
Perhaps even the show's most fervent admirers would stop me at "political and ethical implications".
Conan O'Brien, below, the unemployed former host of "The Tonight Show," has a fervent online fan base.
To the dismay of the show's more fervent fans, the life span of a Kalahari meerkat turns out to be not much different from that of the average soap opera villain.
But two weeks into the war, with little to show for his fervent support of the American-led operation and local elections looming, Mr. Aznar is under intense criticism.
