As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
TV Shows that died too early.
Raakam
Too many years...CanadalandRegistered User regular
Too many years...CanadalandRegistered User regular
In this thread we discuss TV Shows that were good but sadly didn't quite get the ratings and eventually got canceled too soon. I'm trying to find some shows to watch on Netflix and it's hard going and tedious to find one diamond in the rough.
I also quite dig the fact that I can watch all of the episodes of these shows and be done with them pretty quickly.
Let's get the most obvious one out of the way:
Firefly
Great show, short lived, but thankfully a movie came out that ends the series rather well - Serenity.
2 - Dead Like Me
I really enjoyed both seasons of this show. Well written, interesting character arcs and development. Stay away from the movie though, what an epic piece of letdown that was.
3- Journey Man
The show wasn't as good as the above two, but still pretty interesting to me. Worth watching the episodes if you're into time travel and such shenanigans.
Please share some of your gems! It doesn't have to be US tv, British or even foreign stuff (if it's subtitled) is appropriate. Try and keep the plot revealing information in spoilers for folks.
I also quite dig the fact that I can watch all of the episodes of these shows and be done with them pretty quickly.
Let's get the most obvious one out of the way:
Firefly
Firefly is an American space western television series created by writer and director Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, under his Mutant Enemy Productions label. Whedon served as executive producer, along with Tim Minear.
The series is set in the year 2517, after the arrival of humans in a new star system, and follows the adventures of the renegade crew of Serenity, a "Firefly-class" spaceship. The ensemble cast portrays the nine characters who live on Serenity. Whedon pitched the show as "nine people looking into the blackness of space and seeing nine different things".[1] The show explores the lives of some people who fought on the losing side of a civil war and others who now make a living on the outskirts of the society, as part of the pioneer culture that exists on the fringes of their star system. In addition, it is a future where the only two surviving superpowers, the United States and China, fused to form the central federal government, called the Alliance, resulting in the fusion of the two cultures as well. According to Whedon's vision, "nothing will change in the future: technology will advance, but we will still have the same political, moral, and ethical problems as today."[2]
Firefly premiered in the United States and Canada on the Fox network on September 20, 2002. Despite high expectations for the Joss Whedon-led project, by mid-December 2002 Firefly had averaged only 4.7 million viewers per episode and was 98th in Nielsen ratings.[3] It was canceled after eleven of the fourteen produced episodes were aired. Despite the series' relatively short life span, it received strong sales when it was released on DVD and has large fan support campaigns.[4][5] It won an Emmy in 2003 for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series. The post-airing success of the show led Whedon and Universal Pictures to produce a film based on the series, Serenity.[4] The Firefly franchise expanded from the series and film to other media including comics and a role-playing game.
Great show, short lived, but thankfully a movie came out that ends the series rather well - Serenity.
2 - Dead Like Me
Dead Like Me is an American-Canadian comedy-drama television series starring Ellen Muth and Mandy Patinkin as grim reapers who "live" and work in Seattle, Washington. Filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, the show was created by Bryan Fuller for the Showtime network, where it ran for two seasons in 2003 and 2004 before cancellation. Fuller left the show five episodes into the first season due to creative differences; creative direction of Dead Like Me was then taken over by executive producers John Masius and Stephen Godchaux. A direct-to-DVD movie titled Dead Like Me: Life After Death was released on February 17, 2009,[1] with an option to restart the series.[2]
Eighteen-year-old Georgia "George" Lass (played by Muth) is the show's protagonist and narrator. George dies early in the pilot episode. She becomes one of the "undead", a "grim reaper". George soon learns that a Reaper's job is to remove the souls of people, preferably just before they die, and escort them until they move on into their afterlife. George's death leaves her mother (Cynthia Stevenson) and the rest of her family behind at a point when her relationships with them were on shaky ground.
The show explores the "lives" and experiences of a small team of such Reapers, as well as the post-mortem changes in George and her family as they deal with George's death.
I really enjoyed both seasons of this show. Well written, interesting character arcs and development. Stay away from the movie though, what an epic piece of letdown that was.
3- Journey Man
Journeyman is a 2007 American science fiction television drama created by Kevin Falls for 20th Century Fox Television which aired on the NBC television network.[1] It starred Kevin McKidd as Dan Vasser, a San Francisco reporter who involuntarily travels through time. Alex Graves, who directed the pilot, and Falls served as executive producers.[1]
The show premiered on September 24, 2007, airing Mondays at 10 p.m. Eastern Time.[1][2] The initial order from the network was for 13 episodes, all of which were produced prior to the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike by screenwriters. However, the series suffered from low ratings,[3] and NBC allowed its option for a full season order to lapse by the December 11, 2007, deadline for renewal. According to trade reports, such an action effectively means the series has been cancelled.[3] As of April 2, 2008, the show had officially been cancelled by NBC.[4] The final episode of Journeyman aired on Wednesday, December 19, 2007. All 13 episodes of the show are available via Hulu[5].
The show wasn't as good as the above two, but still pretty interesting to me. Worth watching the episodes if you're into time travel and such shenanigans.
Please share some of your gems! It doesn't have to be US tv, British or even foreign stuff (if it's subtitled) is appropriate. Try and keep the plot revealing information in spoilers for folks.
My padherder
they don't it be like it is but it do
they don't it be like it is but it do
Raakam on
0
Posts
You know it's true.
Possibly my favorite show of all time. Certainly one of the best casts of all time, regardless of the writing, which was also phenomenal.
I suppose you couldn't call it an accessible show, but it's the sort of thing where what you put into comes back thrice over. So many little details and story threads. Oh, and the dialogue. Jesus cocksucking christ.
The show just kind of ended after the third season, and was clearly supposed to conclude with the fourth (or at least could have). Instead very little actually gets resolved, but I guess you could say that it wasn't the kind of show where things could just *end* and that'd be that.
Hands down fantastic show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRC_zw0q58Q
Two seasons of an original story with some fine dry and dark humour.
Granted, sometimes networks seem to WANT to lose money when they fuck a show all over the schedule, and I hate to see that. Wonderfalls, despite having thirteen episodes in the can and paid for, got cancelled after four episodes . . . all of which were shown on different days and times.
But then there are shows like Caprica or Sarah Connor, which had huge expectations and a great initial viewership, and then fucked it all up with lousy executions.
This...hurts me so much.
It also hurts because I can see where you're coming from.
I pray that this series is allowed to run its course.
SOOOO much potential here.
BLOG: http://cabinetminister.blogspot.com/
Loved that show...then watched it vanish.
Madness.
Oh, and CLONE HIGH too.
BLOG: http://cabinetminister.blogspot.com/
Caprica especially.
It was such a great show with a huge potential, but NBC decided to premiere it and advertise it at the exact same time as 30 Rock and people honestly just couldn't comprehend the idea of two sketch comedy shows, even though they had absolutely nothing in common.
Much like the ill fated Paul Blart/Observe and Report debacle.
It was made by Aaron Sorkin, the man behind Sports Night and The West Wing and several great movies.
Rest in Peace...
Sarah Connor really ended poorly, but I think that was due to them knowing the show was canceled and trying to tie up loose ends to make it look like the story would make sense on the general Terminator franchise timeline.
I agree it was a good show though.
The series stars Damian Lewis as Charlie Crews, a detective released from prison after serving twelve years for a crime he did not commit.
The moment Donal Logue showed up I was both excited and mortified because I knew it was doomed.
Better Off Ted, we hardly knew ye.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUvu-9yDnUE
Quotheth the Jackson, hell yes it deserved to die.
Brimstone, Fox
Farscape, Sci-Fi (not SyFy)
Edit: No one said Arrested Development yet? Really?
Such a great show. I do feel it would have been better off on a cable network, though. The show didn't look that expensive, and was a little to brainy-nerdy in its tone for the network that ran 10 seasons of According to Jim.
And like Deebaser said, no Arrested Development? Try harder!
Dude.
On that note, I liked Boomtown a lot, but it didn't last long.
Meh. Arrested Development was given every chance in the book to find it's audience, and it failed to do so on each and every occasion. Not saying the show wasn't good (although it wasn't as good as people like to believe) but it certainly wasn't set up to fail.
Space Above and Beyond. This scifi war epic, created by two great X-Files writers back in 1995, died after only one season. It was full of loveable, relatable characters who just happened to be in the military, without any of the tired trained killbot stereotyping we generally see. The war itself, humanity's fight with an alien civilization, was gritty and harrowing, but the characters all remained human and sympathetic instead of growing increasingly unlikeable and asshole-ish. Watching each episode every week, you felt like you were just another member of the Wildcards. The sense of camaraderie and fellowship never wavered, even in the darkest times. The SA-43 Hammerhead is one of the best space fighter designs ever conceived. It looked like a realistic extrapolation of current fighter designs but with a unique style all its own.
Unfortunately, Fox was retarded and didn't think the show's high costs justified its ratings, which were somewhat lower then the X-Files. So they basically ended the war, which seemed like it would go on forever, with the Earth forces basically on the footsteps of the Chigs' homeworld. This was an incredible reversal of fortunes, since halfway through the season it basically felt like Earth was ready to throw in the towel, and everyone had a defeatist attitude. You could tell they had hastily slapped together this resolution when it was clear Fox wasn't going to renew the show for a second season.
"Shuffle up the Wildcards! And deal em." -Admiral Ross
It was a goofy show, but in a really good way. The series finale also had a fantastic rip on the Law & Order/CSI style cop dramas. I'm sad to see it go. Also sad to see Bradley Whitford's moustache go.
in a way the system made it difficult to sell
watching it again on hulu made me realize how many injokes and such it relied on. It fit really poorly in an environment where weeks or months could go by between episodes
Oh god dammit I was just about to post this
It was the Season 2 chicanery that cost it its renewal. Season 1 was on-point pretty much the whole time and set up some interesting avenues story-wise, but then Season 2 came along and John just pouted the whole time while Sarah chased down images from nightmares she was having and NO ONE WAS TALKING ABOUT MURDEROUS TIME-TRAVELLING ROBOTS!!!11!
It's the first rule of any TV show: Consider your imperative. If your show is about robots, you make a show about robots first and foremost. I guess that goes for both Sarah Connor and Caprica.
I liked Good Guys, but it had no arc. It wasn't serious enough to get by as a procedural, it wasn't funny enough to be a comedy, it wasn't expensive enough to be a thriller, and it didn't have the continuity to draw in anyone else.
Frankly I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did.
This show went for 10 seasons and still ended too early. Brilliant concept, incredible execution, cheesy robots... and then executive meddling eventually forced it off the air. There was absolutely no need for a plot in between the theater segments, and yet the suits forced them to have a plot arc every season. Luckily the riffing was still spot-on, but the host segments lost something as a result.
Oh, fuck, you're right. I've been rewatching the show over the past month or so, and while I absolutely love it and still consider it to be one of the best comedy shows of the past decade, it actually isn't as good as I think it is. Thanks for clarifying :^:
Oh wait...nevermind... they fucked that show up pretty bad by the end. I do appreciate the Oceanography snippets they did over the credits though. More shows should do that.
How about Frisky Dingo? That show was aces, but didn't make it to a third season.
Which is ultimately okay, because the first two seasons were fantastic, and it spawned Archer in its place.
Just as it started to get slightly more interesting/have a scope beyond monster-of-the-week...cancelled. And in a really rushed, dodgy finale, to add insult to injury.
I like how Joel tried to do a ton of other shit, especially with his tinkering (he "invented" the robots for MST3K) and everybody was pretty much like, nope, we just wanna see you make fun of shitty flicks
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Yeah, that's one I miss. Especially when you hear the old show-runner talk about what ideas he had for season 2. He was big on continuity.
I helped kill this show. I didn't even know what it was about until after the final episode aired. I watched all 13 episodes over a weekend on Hulu and now I'm sad season 2 was never greenlit.