Summer burnoffs: "Eli Stone" wraps, "Dirty Sexy Money" returns

This is burnoff season, network television's version of the remainder sale. TV series produced at great expense and initially rolled out with million-dollar fanfare, are quietly placed on the prime-time schedule's version of the display table in the back, where advertisers pay bargain rates to have their commercials run during the breaks.

I have gotten several emails in recent weeks about "Dirty Sexy Money," the over-the-top comedic soap opera about large family with more money than sense and the bedraggled lawyer (played by Peter Krause, pictured) compelled to defend them at every turn. I liked this show a lot when it first premiered, and I still liked it when ABC brought it back after the writers' strike for a relaunch. The public, excepting my readers, yawned and moved on. So ABC yanked the show. Needing to recoup at least part of its investment on "Dirty Sexy Money" and two other shows ("Pushing Daisies" was burned off earlier this summer), the network is unloading them over the summer without any fanfare on a bad night before an indifferent audience.

The "Eli Stone" series finale airs 9 p.m. Saturday on KMBC-9, and then a week hence, the unseen episodes of "Dirty Sexy Money." Enjoy while you can.