Not that the show had much of a chance anyway. It was originally given a 13-episode order, then reduced to seven. Several possible premiere dates were rumored, including a plum timeslot after “American Idol,” before FOX dumped “Jezebel” on Friday nights and even burned off two of the seven episodes produced on the evening of its debut.

Truth be told, the show wasn’t very good anyway. At least, the three episodes that aired weren’t. Sherman-Palladino’s patented lightning-fast, quip-heavy dialogue never sounded natural coming out of the mouths of stars Parker Posey and Lauren Ambrose, both of whom have done superior work in the past. The grating, migraine-inducing laugh track didn’t help much either.

Still, I’m always shocked when a network reads the scripts, OKs the casting, sees the pilot, greenlights the show … and then gives it essentially no chance to succeed.

Obviously, somebody at the network agreed with me that “Jezebel” kind of stunk. But you’ve already committed to it up to this point. Why not air the seven episodes you paid for and see if it finds an audience? And, in turn, we can see if the series improves over the course of its run.

Sherman-Palladino has a fair amount of pull in the TV biz, so perhaps FOX execs gave her free rein to produce any kind of show she wanted and then, once they realized they didn’t like what she came up with, had no choice but to bury the show on Fridays and quickly cancel it once the low ratings came in. But that’s a really bad business plan, too. Why bother wooing proven, high-profile talent to your network if you’re not fully prepared to back the show they give you? You’d be better off sanctioning pilots from a bunch of up-and-coming writers and producers, then just picking the ones you actually like.

A similar thing happened with “Miss Guided” over on ABC. That show starred the lovely and funny Judy Greer as a former teenage wallflower who returns to her high school to work as the guidance counselor.

“Miss Guided” wasn’t great either, although, thanks mostly to Greer, it did qualify as an amusing time-passer. ABC certainly has worse sitcoms on its schedule. The unkillable “According to Jim” comes to mind.

Yet, the network blazed through the seven produced episodes of “Miss Guided” as fast as it possibly could. It aired the debut episode on March 18, the second and third episodes two days later, then two more episodes a week after that.

That’s not letting a show find an audience. That’s getting it quickly on and off the schedule so execs can wash their hands of it while still giving the appearance that they gave it a fair shot, and picking up a sliver of ad revenue along the way.

This kind of scheduling actually doubly annoys me, since I hate it when networks schedule back-to-back episodes of the same comedy. Sitcoms work best in half-hour doses. That’s why they are, you know, a half hour.

The final two episodes of “Miss Guided” were broadcast last night, a mere 16 days after it first aired. Did you give it a chance and watch — or did you blink?

Remote control in hand, Bob Taylor monitors the TV landscape from his couch and diligently reports his findings to you. If you have a question or comment for Bob, e-mail him at bobtaylor52@yahoo.com.You can find Bob on the web at www.robertbriantaylor.com.