Ghost in the TV Machine

Recently I’ve become fascinated by a TV phenomenon that I’ve started calling ghost shows—series that dominate the online conversation one year before all but vanishing from it the next. I don’t mean shows that have been canceled. Ghost shows are still on the air. They’re still being watched. Possibly by large numbers of people. But hardly anyone seems to talk about them anymore. They don’t disappear from your television. They just disappear, suddenly and unexpectedly, from the discourse around your television. I picture them gliding soundlessly through an ominous cultural fog, afloat but weirdly translucent, like ghost ships.