TV Tuesday: Cancellations

[yourlibrarian]

Cancellations are usually a sad affair. Sometimes shows even get a renewal before they get cancelled again. Which show's cancellation hit has hit you the most?

Comments

[ecto_one_spengler]

It's a tossup between HBO Max's ACTUALLY good animated fare and semi debatably Terra Nova. I never got to see much of either and the stories of their cancellations make me lowkey sad.

[yourlibrarian]

I just remembered another one gone too soon, was Good Girls Revolt. The sad thing about single seasons is that few people will try them out if it ends too soon, which is a shame because quite a few are well worth watching.

[ecto_one_spengler]

I haven't even heard of Good Girls Revolt... But I totally agree! I have been guilty of skipping single seasons, I suspect.

[merydian]

Terra Nova! I luckily got into that one a few years afterward so I knew it had been cancelled, but it would've been cool to get a bit more of that world.

[ecto_one_spengler]

From what I remember of Terra Nova when I was lucky enough to catch a bit of it, it seemed so damn cool in my dinosaur phase haha. But I can also see why it woulda got canned - it seems in my memory to be a bit niche.

[china_shop]

Recently (for some value of "recently), the ones that spring to mind that still make me sad are Paper Girls and A League of Their Own. They were both so good, and they were different from other shows and each other. (There are probably at least a dozen more, but those are the ones that I immediately thought of.)

Oh, and People of Earth! The second season was already written, and it still got canned. :-(

[yourlibrarian]

Ugh, I hadn't watched it but that is such a frustrating outcome! Can't remember which show had actually been largely filmed and got cancelled so that season was never shown.

[author_by_night]

A League of Their Own getting cancelled was so upsetting. It deserved better.

[china_shop]

It really did, it was so good! :-(

[mllesatine]

I was really sad, too. Habe always loved the movie and loved the show.

[yourlibrarian]

There have been so many over the years, but I suspect I have forgotten most of them. Certainly I think Firefly was cancelled too soon. I also wanted Angel to go on another 2 seasons. One I recall thinking had a lot of potential that was gone too soon was The Palace from 2008.

One show I was glad that got renewed by moving to Yahoo was Community. It was also glad that Brooklyn99 got more seasons through network moves.

[rogueslayer452]

There's honestly been so many, I've lost count.

I remember getting into Legend of the Seeker right as it was announced it was cancelled after two seasons, it truly broke my heart because I was so excited about finding a new show that was airing. I also remember when Wonderfalls was airing and it was announced that it was cancelled, they pulled the show before it finished its season and I had to wait until the DVD release to finish watching the rest of it.

Sense8 was one of the first major casualties of Netflix cancelling their shows, where they actually tried to stop fans from petitioning to save the show. While we did get a two-hour series finale to wrap things up as a result of the uproar it caused, it still was pretty damn disappointing the way it happened.

Caprica hurt because it was a show that I really loved, and yet it became the "redheaded stepchild" of the BSG fandom and the network and sadly it was cancelled after one season.

Truthfully, there's so many show cancellations that hit hard because you enjoyed it so much, and I have far too many of those to list off.

[yourlibrarian]

Oh yes, that's the worst. At least so far with streamers, while they may not air the show at all, they don't pull it before all the episodes are available. There were a bunch of shows where you had to get the DVD set (if there was one!) to finish seeing what had been filmed.

[krakendelsur]

I was so upset when they cancelled sense8. They cancelled Travelers (another favorite show of mine) around that time as well so it definitely felt like I just couldn't have anything nice :(

[yourlibrarian]

Yeah that was too bad about Travelers -- I watched all of that.

[felis]

One of the ones that annoyed me the most were all the shenanigans with Star Trek: Prodigy, where the second season was already done, yet Paramount decided to cancel the show, not air the second season at all and even remove the first season from their platform for tax reasons. Netflix picked it up, so the (really well done!) second season at least saw the light of day, but I guess now it's cancelled again? Luckily, if two seasons is all there'll ever be, they did write a nice conclusion in their season two finale - open enough for the story to go on, but still a good full circle origin story.

[yourlibrarian]

I felt confused about this until I looked it up on Wikipedia and realized I'd seen the second part of S1, and not a second season. And yes, I don't get how it's a tax write off if you don't air it, but sell it to someone else who does...

[bleodswean]

I'll never get over Spirited being cancelled.

[yourlibrarian]

I hadn't heard of it before, but it sounds like a fun premise.

[jo]

I'm still pissed off about My So-Called Life, and to a slightly lesser extent, Freaks and Geeks.

In terms of more recent shows, I was not happy to learn that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds would be cancelled after 5 seasons, although not THAT surprised because the newer Treks seem to get only 5 seasons. But what really annoyed was the season 5 would be only 6 episodes.

Also, it's a shame that The Peripheral got only the one season. I thought they'd done a really good job with the first season and would have happily watched more.

I have a number of shows from eons ago that got cancelled after one season -- shows that when I mention them to other people, no one else seems to have heard of them. Couple of examples would be Nowhere Man and Harsh Realm.

[yourlibrarian]

I heard about SNW. Is it costs? Demand for actors?

[jo]

More Paramount being dicks, I think? This is the most detailed explanation I've come across: https://screenrant.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-final-season-better-movie/

[yourlibrarian]

I fail to see how SNW had run its course, there is so much more they could have done. Maybe they just felt the showrunners had run their course.

[china_shop]

Oh yes, I really liked The Peripheral. :-(

[merydian]

The Secret Saturdays. It was my favorite show as a kid and the cancellation hit me so hard that for the next decade I almost exclusively sought out shows that were already finished. I can't get sad about a surprise cancellation if I already know where it ended!

I do wish some of those shows had gotten more seasons, like Terra Nova and Earth 2. But I also am glad they ended where they did because I don't love what I've heard about the plans for unrealized future seasons.

Most recently, I'm sad about Cloak and Dagger's and The Wheel of Time's cancellations. :(

[yourlibrarian]

I haven't yet seen Wheel's second season but I was looking forward to it. And I also think it's really unfortunate that there isn't going to be any more.

[krakendelsur]

I'm devastated that Netflix just completely removed Rise of Phoenixes from their catalogue. It was a Netflix original too, so no other service is going to add it to their catalogue and there's no DVD sets.

[yourlibrarian]

Oh that is the worst! You own it, why not let it be seen -- it might just catch on slowly. It's like if it doesn't explode in the fist month it's not worth investing in it, but that's not how people use streaming services!

[krakendelsur]

Right? There are plenty of shows and movies that didn't do well at first that later became timeless cult classics.

[mllesatine]

Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 and Happy Endings both comedies running around the same time 2011 to 2013. They also had like good ratings just not good enough for the time. I think nowadays you would call 3 million viewers a hit show.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, so many shows were a victim of their time (or their network). I heard Don't Trust was good but never got around to seeing it.

[tinny]

Farscape forever and always. But we got PK Wars, so that was okay in the end.

Babylon 5, because they uncancelled it way too late and the whole fourth and fifth seasons were messed up because of it.

More recently: Doctor Odyssey, maybe? But it was more a case of the network forcibly suppressing the main draw of the show and twisting it out of shape before our very eyes, so by the time the season was over, I didn't even want them to renew it anymore. That was maybe the most blatant and terrible display of power I've seen exerted on/through a tv show.

Thinking of last week's post again, and the fact that networks/production companies are no longer motivated to make long shows at all, I guess this is a question that will change in importance now.

[yourlibrarian]

Do you happen to have any articles about Dr. Odyssey that discussed the behind the scenes? I had mixed feelings about it, because on the one hand that show could definitely have gone on, and I kind of admired its "throw everything at the wall in the 1st season" approach. On the other, I wanted to spend more time with the crew so by the end I was skipping big portions of each episode.

You're right about everything shifting to being an (often poorly ending) miniseries now. Were I a showrunner I would definitely tie off nearly everything at the end of the first season because a bad ending can be really unsatisfying of an otherwise enjoyed show.