TV of the last decade..

[Raithe]

For the truly random subject...

 

We've moved into a new decade and tv has changed a fair bit in the last one.. but think how many damned good television series there were that networks cancelled by the end of the first series. Usually due to network jitters, or the belief that the series appealed to only a small bracket of the population.

I mean, right off the top of my head a bunch jump out at me.

 

The most obvious being Firefly. Cowboys & Hookers in SPAACE! What was not to love? Although when it was first put on the network screwed up its time slotting, so the pilot which introduced the characters and universe was shown as episode 10 or so....

 

Actually, there was a fair bit of sci-fi related shows that got killed like that..

 

Threshold - a crisis analyst designing worst case scenarios finds out her "Encounter with Aliens" has come true and gets called in to run the plan and keep it all a secret while dealing with what amounts to alien signals changing human dna...

 

Oddysey 5 - a group of astronauts watch the world destroyed while they're in orbit, encounter a strange alien device and have their minds sent back a few years into their earlier bodies. Leaving them with trying to find out what the hell happened...

 

John Doe - A man wakes up on an island off of Seattle with total amnesia...but then realises he basically has the sum of all human knowledge. Just not who he actually is. While trying to find out who he is and how he knows so much he helps the police and struggles with some secret society.

 

Journeyman - Came across in some ways as a modern version of quantum leap almost. Reporter keeps jumping back in time, and finding out that each jump follows a person whose destiny he needs to change. Thrown in an ex-fiancee believed dead, who is also jumping in time....

 

On the not-so-sci-fi scale..

 

Kings - now this was a rather impressive one, a reworking of the story of David into a fictional modern setting. Had some beutiful dialogue.

 

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - funny, witty, and smart. Set around a pseudo SNL style comedy show. And then it was cancelled what seemed like 6 months before 30 Rock came out... Apparently the network decided Studio 60 whilst appealing to the university educated, higher income bracket wasn't a wide enough audience to keep making it.

 

The Unusuals - came across as "MASH in a police station". The police precinct where all the oddball cops and strange screwups got posted.

 

Eleventh Hour - scientific crime procedural .... sort of. American remake of an English mini-series.

 

 

But the thing that got me, was that the majority of those shows also had an arcing storyline... Which left cliffhangers unanswered right when the series ended.. Dang networks.

[Hiro Protagonist]

Some more:

 

4400. Needed a 5th Season to wrap it all up.

 

Caprica. BSG prequel and cancelled after the first season.

 

Crusade. The sequel to Babylon 5 meant to run for 5 seasons, only to be cancelled halfway through Season 1.

 

Dark Angel. Cancelled after two seasons and no wrap up. They did jump the shark with releasing all the X experiments/failures though.

 

Dollhouse. Should have had more episodes. Ending felt a bit rushed.

 

Farscape. Wrapped up with the Peacekeaper Wars but really needed the 5th Season to tie it up properly.

 

Flash Forward. Needed another season.

 

Heroes. Was a trainwreck but the Season finale in the 4th Season is unresolved.

 

Jericho. Cancelled halfway through the Second season.

 

New Amsterdam. An highlander type show with an immortal as the central character, cancelled halfway through the first season.

 

Persons Unknown. Great show similar to The Prisoner, cancelled after one season. And what about that Season finale? We'll never know what happens.

 

Rubicon. A thought provoking political thriller. Cancelled after 1 season.

 

Sarah Connor Chronicles. Season 2 was a shocker in the middle but came good in the end. Needed a 3rd season to wrap it all up.

 

Stargate SG-1/Stargate Atlantis/Stargate Universe. Should have had one last season to wrap it up properly.

 

Terriers. Cancelled after one season.

 

Traveler. An excellent conspiracy-drama. Two Uni students hunted by the FBI after a bombing of a museum. Their only lead is their best friend, Will Traveler, who disappeared after the bombing and is not in any record - anywhere. Cancelled after 8 episodes.

[Raithe]

Ah, if you want a sort of wrap up to Dark Angel, they released a couple of books. One of which covers the finale episode and then runs along a bit further. Then there was a 2nd that continued the story to explain a whole lot more and provide some sense of completion.

[Enoch]

I find every (predictable) cancellation of a sci-fi show hilarious. The shows are, at best, mediocre, but they get colossally overrated by their target audience simply because sci-fi nerds eat it up because they are so un-used to being pandered to by mainstream entertainment. The core of sci-fi fans have never really been able to support a show above the "3rd-tier network/syndication" level for more than a season or two unless that show also draws significant mainstream appeal (which usually doesn't happen unless the sci-fi elements are only a pretty minor part of the show's nature, e.g., The X Files). The wailing and gnashing of teeth from the audience when the mainstream appeal fails to materialize and the show is subsequently ****canned is just so cute.

 

 

(Exception: The cancellation of Mystery Science Theater 3000 was a travesty. Although, IIRC, the bulk of that show's run was more than a decade ago. Which makes me feel old.)

[Malcador]

Only show I was disappointed at its cancellation was Space Above and Beyond. Liked it when I was younger, but looking back, really is meh material.

[Purkake]

Arrested Development

Better Off Ted

Wonderfalls

Day Break

Carnivale

Dead Like Me

[Gorth]

Sarah Connor Chronicles. Season 2 was a shocker in the middle but came good in the end. Needed a 3rd season to wrap it all up.

 

The most enjoyable series since Lexx and Firefly

[LadyCrimson]

I think Journeyman could've used another season to see if it would get better/expand its audience.

I wish HBO had done another season of Rome, but I understand why they didn't...and also, from the way they did the 2nd season, a 3rd might have sucked, so...

 

I don't watch a whole lot of episodic TV these days and even when I do, I don't generally follow it religiously for more than one season or so. So there aren't too many shows where I feel very miffed by cancellation. Either I didn't watch it enough to care, or the show has been on long enough that it doesn't bother me much, because it had a good run (better to leave while still liked then run it into the ground) - like MASH, Cheers, Seinfield, STNG or Stargate SG-1 etc. The last actually felt like it went on a little too long, imo.

[Guard Dog]

I find every (predictable) cancellation of a sci-fi show hilarious. The shows are, at best, mediocre, but they get colossally overrated by their target audience simply because sci-fi nerds eat it up because they are so un-used to being pandered to by mainstream entertainment. The core of sci-fi fans have never really been able to support a show above the "3rd-tier network/syndication" level for more than a season or two unless that show also draws significant mainstream appeal (which usually doesn't happen unless the sci-fi elements are only a pretty minor part of the show's nature, e.g., The X Files). The wailing and gnashing of teeth from the audience when the mainstream appeal fails to materialize and the show is subsequently ****canned is just so cute.

 

 

(Exception: The cancellation of Mystery Science Theater 3000 was a travesty. Although, IIRC, the bulk of that show's run was more than a decade ago. Which makes me feel old.)

 

Totally agree with this post. Especially that last part. Fortunately NetFlix has a big collection of MST3K that can be viewed on line.

[Purkake]

I really hope all you MSK3000 fans are aware of Rifftrax...

[Guard Dog]

I wish Law and Order had been given one more season, I really liked BSG but could never get into Caprica, the last Sci-fi show I thought was any good was DS9 but Voyager & Enterprise did have their moments. The rest of the crap on SyFy is just garbage.

 

I only follow two shows regularly and those are Southland (glad to see if found a home on TNT) and The Dog Whisperer on NGC. Other than that I only watch sports, mainly just football, baseball or hockey, but only if the Preds are playing.

[Niten_Ryu]

Deadwood

Rome

Freaks and Geeks

Late Night with Conan O'Brien

 

I can't think any other shows. Most deserve to be cancelled sooner rather then later

 

All of those shows had great characters like - Artie Kendall

 

Dirty mouth ghost from the golden age of radio.

Oh, women shouldn

[Tigranes]

The Simpsons, Colbert Report and Friends are just about the only American TV shows I've watched with any regularity in the last decade.

 

Can't say I feel like I've missed a whole lot.

[Walsingham]

The Simpsons, Colbert Report and Friends are just about the only American TV shows I've watched with any regularity in the last decade.

 

Can't say I feel like I've missed a whole lot.

 

That's a bloody silly thing to say, if you don't mind my saying so. Granted there's a lot of trash, but there's piles of enjoyable and even interesting TV come out of the USA.

[Calax]

I think one of the reasons dark angel died was because it moved time slots like every other week in the second season. That said, it felt fairly obvious in certain series that they kinda had this idea for a series/story arc, but once that initial idea was gone, they were like "great.. now what?"

 

Dark Angel, Heroes, and Lost all seemed to kinda suffer from this. Dark Angel had a great first season arc that wrapped itself up by eliminating the evil group... so they had to find a way to slap the reset button and ended up bringing what was basically a one-off character back as a slightly different version. Heroes they had that great initial idea but felt like while the concept is sound, they kinda lost the idea for a story after that first season and were grasping at straws for the others. And Lost was just kinda popular because of the mysteries so they'd keep making more mysteries and adding twists which just kinda made people ignore it.

 

Honestly, Stargate just needed to end before the Ori (at least SG-1) and Atlantis needed credible villians. The wraith were supposed to have basically killed the most powerful creatures in the universe (who could basically make planets disappear etc), but were able to be beaten by guys with guns. Also it didn't help that it felt like SG-1 lite. Didn't see universe, but from what i understand it was just BSG with Stargate decorations.

 

I am gonna say that Justice League Unlimited should have been extended.

[Pidesco]

I can't believe no one has mentioned Pushing Daisies, yet. It was brilliant.

[cronicler]

Not Science Fiction at all but I hated when Veronica Mars was cancelled.

Then again the execs did manage to butcher the 3rd seasion pretty badly so no wonder...

[Raithe]

Well I wasn't meaning science fiction only..but there seemed to be a lot of sci-fi examples.

 

Series that the execs thought had enough promise to go beyond a simple pilot .. that were written with long multi-season story-arcs.. and then get cancelled leaving all sorts of hanging questions.

 

If they haven't got enough merit to give more then 13 episodes to.. why bother saying yes to series that have those long arcs?

[Hurlshort]

The Tick was too short-lived.

 

Andy Richter Controls the Universe was also funny and cancelled too soon.

[Enoch]

Andy Richter Controls the Universe was also funny and cancelled too soon.

I preferred the later Richter vehicle where he played a private detective.

[Hurlshort]

Andy Richter Controls the Universe was also funny and cancelled too soon.

I preferred the later Richter vehicle where he played a private detective.

 

That might be the one I was thinking of as well. I just typed in his name for a search and that one came up, I couldn't recall the show name.

[Gorth]

Well I wasn't meaning science fiction only..but there seemed to be a lot of sci-fi examples.

In that case, 'Rome' is one of my favourite tv series of the last 10 years. A shame it only lasted two seasons.

[Tigranes]

That's a bloody silly thing to say, if you don't mind my saying so. Granted there's a lot of trash, but there's piles of enjoyable and even interesting TV come out of the USA.

 

Oh, probably. It's just when you're not 'in' the whole thing it just appears as a great big blob to sort through, and to be honest I don't miss it. :/

 

Must try Rome at some point.

[GreasyDogMeat]

While it sucked that Firefly got cancelled, it was awesome that the show got a movie to give it a proper ending. In a way it was saved from future mediocrity. X-Files, for instance was fantastic for the first few seasons but became a joke later.

 

My most recent disapointment was Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles. The show was getting really good near the end.

 

Also Lost. Yeah, I know it wasn't cancelled, but of 6 years of show it was only the very last episode that disapointed me.

[Whipporwill]

The online reaction to Firefly among science fiction fans was pretty dire. People sneered at it for its bizarre aesthetic and its refusal to contain any science whatsoever. It was only after the cancellation that people started acting like they had enjoyed it.