When it comes to whether or not to renew a television show, it’s no secret that executives and audiences aren’t always on the same page – in fact, it seems sometimes as if they’re not even reading the same book.

That said, they can usually come up with a reason that at least makes a little bit of sense.

Not in these cases, though, because there was absolutely no good reason we had to let these shows go.

It needed more time.

Loved Almost Human. Karl Urban for heaven’s sake! I don’t think they gave it enough time to grow and get attention.

The problem is that Fox showed the episodes out of order, which made the story impossible to follow, and people lost interest. They showed episode one, then episodes 5-8, then 3, then 10, then 2, 9, 4, 11-13. Because there was a single narrative arc, this was a mess. They did that show so dirty.

EDIT: I woke up to 34 replies about how this is just like Firefly. I get it. It’s like Firefly.

Dark Matter.

Dark Matter. It was cancelled right as it was becoming interesting.

The reason why will piss you off

It irritates me too. Especially because I had a five season plan going in complete with character and story arcs (which is why we were always able to set-up and pay off so much as the show went along). But, since you asked, this is what went down…

When we were first pitching the show, the pilot script went to Syfy’s Acquisition division in New York. They picked up the show. But as it turns out, the script had also been sent to Syfy’s Originals division in L.A. – who hated it and passed. And when they found out that the Acquisitions department in NY had picked up a project they had passed on, I heard they were decidedly Unhappy.

Then the show premiered and outperformed most of their originals. Which, from what I heard, really didn’t sit well with Syfy L.A.

fast-forward three years later and our point person in New York left to go to Netflix. As a result, we didn’t have a champion in our corner anymore. Even though we were the network’s third-most watched show, I heard that not one executive stepped up for us. And, well, Syfy L.A. were never really fans – so we were cancelled. Without so much as a press release or a thank you. We went back at them and asked for the opportunity to offer fans a conclusion, even simply in the form of a two hour movie. They never even answered the email.”

TLDR The West coast VP in charge of programming hated it and was pissed when it got picked up by the East coast. She got it cancelled out of spite the first opportunity she had.

Not a joke.

King of the Hill

It was cancelled not because of low ratings or controversy, but because Fox wanted to make room for the new and upcoming comedy…

The Cleveland Show (that’s not a joke by the way, that’s actually the reason KotH was cancelled).

We’re back baby.

Futurama…….twice…….but…… We’re back baby!

Three times.

Original run up to S4
The S5 made up of the four tv movies.
Comedy Central reboot.
Now.

A silver lining.

Freaks and Geeks

Its cancellation was ultimately a good thing.

Judd Apatow became hell bent on making everyone that was cast on that show successful and without that motivation we would have missed out on like a dozen all time great comedies.

The writing is amazing.

Better off Ted

Every episode of better off Ted is one of the best written tv episodes ever.

I contend the episode where they realized that the motion detectors that they installed on the doors, bathrooms and water fountains were never tested on black people is the single greatest half hour of comedy ever.

I mean it’s a pretty good reason.

Pushing Daisies.

It was cancelled due to the writers’ strike, which was not a good reason to cancel it.

At the time, anyway.

Rome HBO cancelled it because they considered it too expensive.

The only reason it got made was because it was a BBC joint production. 100 million a season in 2007 dollars.

Even for a flagship show, which this wasn’t, that’s a ton of money.

Heartbreaking.

The Expanse

The last 3 books are the best of the series and include a satisfying ending. There is a time jump of 30 years in the books but really for the show they could have made it like 5 for the sake of the cast. Not seeing the TV show be fully finished is heartbreaking.

Didn’t do it justice.

Deadwood on HBO, years ago.

The movie they did didn’t do it justice. They really shoulda done a limited series to tie everything up, because the movie felt like a long episode and they tried to cram everything in there. It just wasn’t worthy of the series.

A good bad guy.

Carnivale

The cast we’re great, but Clancy Brown was outstanding in it. Such a good bad guy.

Not over the disappointment.

Gotta say Mindhunter. Really seemed like one of the only shows that Netflix actually dragged their feet on cancelling, seeming to hope Fincher would return to it.

It ended with so many questions unanswered. I still haven’t gotten over the disappointment. My biggest burning question is what was going to happen with Bills son? They basically set him up to be a blossoming psychopath and would have been revealed in season 3…if there were a season 3. I need some damn closure man 🙁

It haunts us all.

Firefly — the network couldn’t be bothered to show the episodes in the correct order.

irefly has haunted me since I first saw it as a teenager. Such a perfect cast and great writing

Infuriating.

Dead Like Me.

It’s infuriating how the movie completely undid all of Daisy’s growth and arc.

Nobody knows.

I don’t even understand why Arrested Development was cancelled, it was one of the greatest comedies ever.

Then they brought it back many years later and almost ruined it’s legacy.

Why are they like this?

Basically any Netflix series that people want to keep watching

A bit too close to home.

JERICHO!

Maybe that scene where the hung the Blackwater dude cut a little to close to home.

The first season was magnificent. They had to rush an ending to the point where it barely made any sense. But wish they could have had 2 more seasons to flush it out.

Why should that matter?

1899.

2nd most watched show on Netflix for the month after it was released.

Cancelled Season 2.

i read an article once where they were saying about a then-cancelled show (can’t recall which one) that had high viewership, the reason for the cancellation was lack of social media engagement, which is just…. so weird to me.

it’s like all the shows that got cancelled when streaming first started because were waiting to binge it all at once instead of watch it every week

not every show demands social media engagement. not every show asks its audience to discuss theories about the future of the story, post memes, argue about ships, etc.

The same people.

Inside Job. I honestly can’t fathom why it got cancelled, that was one of the funniest new cartoons of the last decade.

Centaurworld also for exactly the same reasons, and cancelled by the same people.

Covid strikes again.

Glow. Made me so mad they had a 4th? Season lined up and then cancelled because of covid.

As if they couldn’t have returned to filming afterwards like they did with other shows.

I agree with some of these.

The others, I clearly still need to watch.