By David Bianculli

New York Daily News

(MCT)

The cancellation of ABC’s “Day Break,” the Taye Diggs drama in which his cop character relived variations on the same horrible day, doesn’t bother me.

What bothers me, though, is ABC’s halfhearted attempt to appease fans by promising the remaining unseen episodes will be shown on the ABC Web site. It’s the same disingenuous compromise offered by other networks for other canceled serialized series.

Fox posted installments of “Vanished,” CBS showed “Smith” and NBC is showing episodes of “Kidnapped.”

Better than not seeing them at all? Certainly. For viewers whose interest in those shows is too casual to wait for a potential release on DVD, going online to follow the story line of one of these intricate mystery dramas is indeed a better alternative.

Yet just as the networks collectively – and colossally – overestimated the appetite for new serial dramas this fall, they’re making the same erroneous assumptions about the current state of media interchangeability. In theory, it sounds smart to narrowcast a show that failed on a broadcast platform – but here, too, networks run the danger of annoying as many fans as they please.

No matter how much network executives wish otherwise, the simple truth heading into 2007 is this: Watching TV on TV, and watching it elsewhere, are not yet the same activity.

Out of duty, because I’m a TV critic, I watched every episode of “Vanished” and “Day Break” when they were shown in prime time. More out of pleasure – because I liked the shows enough to stay tuned – I also watched every televised episode of “Smith” and “Vanished.”

Since they moved to the Internet, though, I haven’t followed. Like an acceptable neighborhood restaurant that moves miles away, it just doesn’t seem worth the fuss.

Then there’s the matter of instant availability, which just isn’t true. I fully intended to watch “Smith” on CBS.com, but by the time I got around to it, the show was gone from the network site. All traces have been wiped away, as if by some Leninist revisionism campaign. I can watch one unaired CBS episode on aol.com, but have to pay $2 for the privilege. Sorry, no.

“Kidnapped,” right now, is only one episode ahead of where it was when NBC canceled it. Why not just put all the rest of the shows up, so fans can sate their interest and move on?

If it’s closure you seek, you may never get it: Even after Fox showed its “finale” of “Vanished,” bloggers complained there wasn’t anything final about it. It was just the last episode made before the plug was pulled.

If networks are going to burn off inventory on the Web, they ought to post all unseen episodes at once, and leave them up for the rest of the season. Why roll them out like treats? If they were worth waiting for, or if there were that much interest, they wouldn’t have been candidates for cancellation in the first place.

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David Bianculli: davidbiancullicomcast.net

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(c) 2006, New York Daily News.

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AP-NY-12-19-06 0959EST