TV Shows Cancelled Before Their Time

Nothing lasts forever.

Yes, I know, a rather woeful start but I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s applicable to the world of television. Throughout the calendar year, we see countless shows that fall under the axe of TV networks. If, like me, that the debris of multiple mid-season finales over the last few months are still causing you to squeal and throw your fists in a sea of raging tantrums, then this can only be seen as a good thing for your favourite shows; it at least means that people are tuning in to keep the show on the air to create big twists.

Other shows have not been so lucky… Over the years, you might come across a rare gem of a show and to you, it’s perfect. It has everything you wanted in a show. But then a few months later, you find out that the network that aired it have cancelled the show. They cancelled it?!!

…But let’s be honest, you could be one of those few people who only liked that show and it is probably rubbish, hence why they cancelled it.

Too harsh? Well clearly you haven’t taken a step back and

witnessed some of the drivel that is on TV, aside from the talentless reality shows and fake, monotonous talent shows… wait, do I have that the right way round?


ABC's Selfie, that was cancelled not long after it started. No surprise there...

Either way, this year saw shows like Utopia on FOX (a social experiment where random people were placed in a ‘utopic’ space to see how they’d get along with each other) or Karen Gillan in ABC’s Selfie (a rom-com series about… well…) Because who thought that these were good ideas for TV shows?!

But there are times when these “all-knowing” TV networks get it completely wrong and cancel a show that is, in fact, perfect. To millions. A show that has every aspect crafted with perfectly with meticulous detail.

Sometimes, they’ll blame budget cuts, forcing the show off the air. Others, they just don’t like and don’t care too much about it; they then take this show and air it either out of order or at irregular timeslots or they just stop airing it altogether!

Sometimes the Network Gods really know how to push my buttons… But just humour me and read on, I’ll show you, on numerous occasions, where these “omnipotent” network executives have gotten it oh so very wrong.

Let’s start with FOX. Ha! FOX…So many things can be said about the handling of their programming and their incompetence in managing a network, but I digress. Last year, you may have missed it, thanks to their complete disregard for the show – airing it on random days and even out of order – Almost Human hit the air waves.

The cast of futuristic sci-fi police procedural Almost Human.

Set in 2048, Almost Human starred Dredd actor Karl Urban as police officer John Kennex, who wakes up from a 17-month coma without his girlfriend, his partner and without one of his legs. Surviving a catastrophic attack on the police department and now outfitted with a highly sophisticated synthetic appendage – along with depression, trauma on-set OCD and PTSD – Kennex is persuaded to come back to work. As all cops are required to work with a robot, Kennex must overcome his aversion to androids and get accustomed to his new partner: a discontinued android with unexpected emotional responses.

The tagline for the show.

What set this show apart from the other mundane police procedurals that clog our justice system of television were the outstanding special effects, perhaps thanks to producer J.J.Abrams, and the onscreen chemistry between Urban and Michael Ealy, who plays the new robot partner Kennex is paired with. The storylines of the episodes were well-crafted and meticulously planned as well as believable, given it was set in the future. The downfall of this show however was that FOX had failed to air the episodes in order and not to mention taking long and frequent breaks from airing them.

But they didn’t stop there. A short-lived summer comedy by the name of Surviving Jack aired last year that, set with a nostalgic 90’s vibe, followed Jack Dunlevy, an ex-military man and no-nonsense guy who becomes a full-time parent when his wife decides to go to law school. He takes an unorthodox approach to keeping his teenagers, Frankie and Rachel, in line.

Any kid born in the nineties would not only adore this show for its visual appreciation but the humour of the show is something that is hard to come; the jokes were well-timed, witty and well delivered by each of its actors. But because of irregular time slots and not even airing the final episode, FOX pulled the plug on another great show.

 

Why FOX?!

 

Yet this wasn’t the first time that they had thrown away something so precious. I’m sure you’ve heard of Firefly. Oh you haven’t? THAT’S BECAUSE FOX CANCELLED IT!

Another short-lived cult phenomenon that, set in the future, explores the lives of a group of people who fought on the losing side of a civil war and others who now make a living on the fringe of society, as part of the pioneer culture that exists on the fringes of their star system.

I’ve tried to understand why this show was cancelled but I… just… can’t.

So let’s move away from the abysmal decision-making and the past blunders of FOX to a more reputable network. Let’s go with HBO; the home of The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, True Detective and Game of Thrones. Surely a pedigree network such as this couldn’t have made mistakes like that of *eurgh* FOX?

Rome wasn't built in a day... yet that didn't stop HBO cancelling the show before it was at its best.

Before the days of Spartacus and Game of Thrones, HBO had another hit show called Rome. But Rome’s demise was in fact felled by its own doing. Because of the complex expense of the production, HBO had to make the decision on the second and third season at the same time. HBO ordered a second and declined to order a third – a decision they must have regretted when season two debuted to a better reception than the first (with a few Emmy nominations as well). By the time the network realized its mistake, it was too late since it had already released the actors, who’d moved on to other things. Still, Rome was a real game-changer that helped pave the way for Game of Thrones, Spartacus, The Borgias and The Tudors to name a few.

But this wasn’t the first thread to be cut short by HBO; Deadwood, a drama about wrangling the West into shape included a cast as big as a small, uncivilized frontier town. But Deadwood ended before the West was truly won, and even creator David Milch’s empty promise of a series of TV movies to accompany the show wasn’t enough to stop the cancellation of a nostalgia-hitting phenomenon.

Keeping with the theme of shows that helped pave the way for hit shows today is none other than CBS’s Jericho.

The apocalypse wasn’t nearly as hot in 2006 as it is today in shows like AMC’s The Walking Dead and (the now cancelled) NBC show Revolution – Don’t worry, we’ll get to NBC shortly. A fervent fan-base saved the series from becoming a one-season wonder by mailing CBS execs 20 tonnes of nuts (a nod to a quote on the show by Skeet Ulrich’s Jake Green), but consistent lackluster ratings in season 2 forced the “all-seeing” Eye (get it, because CBS’s logo is an eye…forget it) to pull the plug after seven episodes. But that didn’t stop Lennie James from playing mysterious characters in post-apocalyptic shows, first in Jericho and now he portrays Morgan Jones in The Walking Dead.

 

Now before I bore you to death with too much pessimism and over-the-top-pent-up anger issues with certain television networks, let me tell you about the “home of comedy” that is NBC.

Before the turn of the century, back in 1999, NBC had a revolutionary show in Judd Apatow’s Dramedy Freaks & Geeks. The show that starred James Franco, Seth Rogen, Linda Cardellini and Jason Segel would be an instantaneous hit today with names like that attached.

a young stellar cast graced the show Freaks & Geeks.

But this was unfortunately not the case. Freaks & Geeks emphasized the struggles of teenagers and the transitions they take as it follows the lives of Lindsay Weir (Cardellini) and her younger brother Sam and their relationships with their new friends, as well as the friction they cause with their parents. One central strand of the show is Lindsay’s own self-image from a star academic to a troubled slacker; the other follows Sam and his group of geeky friends as they navigate a different part of the social universe.

The inconvenient truth of this is that they pulled the plug on a show that was so hard-hitting and undercut expertly by well-timed comedy, it had the potential to set NBC apart from the rest… As did Community.

Community is an American sitcom that follows a group of students at a community college in the fictional and dysfunctional locale of Greendale. The series heavily uses meta-humour and popular culture references, often parodying other films and television clichés and tropes. The show also holds many familiar and famous faces in its main cast, along the likes of Ken Jeong, Alison Brie, Johnathan Banks, Joel McHale, Donald Glover and many others.

But this summer, NBC decided to pull the plug after five illustrious seasons, even with a cult following bigger than Firefly; the tagline fans had “Six Seasons and a Movie” was just not what NBC wanted for some reason…


Time to grab the books and get studying; Community is here to stay!

But before things slipped into the “darkest timeline”, there is always that beacon of light. And much like the Beacons of Gondor, the Beacons of Television have been lit to warn television networks that something big is coming; online subscription services. Yahoo!, keen to get their online service up and running revived the innovative show that is Community for another season. Let’s hope the season pays off and the movie shortly follows!

But this is not the first time that ground-breaking shows have been saved by the internet. Arrested Development, which had its plug pulled by FOX – why even bother with this network – will be seeing a revival on the online conglomerate that is Netflix.

So while we’ve seen the demise of some exceptionally great shows, with the constant growth of online networks, it’s quite possible that some shows will start to make the jump and move with the times… especially with television networks continually making blunders like the ones above, what do you expect.