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What's the best US TV show cancelled before it had time to tell its story?
Or the worst, in which case it was undoubtedly a good idea to put it out of its misery.
My own favourite was Dark Skies. I also regret the passing of Odyssey 5 and Poltergeist: The Legacy. I think The Lost World and Sliders might have had another series in them as well.
There are two more, but I can't remember their names. One was about aliens who infiltrated human bodies and changed them so they could breathe underwater. The other featured a teenage girl washed up on a beach who turned out to be the daughter of Satan.
Anything to interrupt the never-ending flow of TCIC blogs.
Comments
The TV program...
about aliens who infiltrated human bodies and changed them so they could breathe underwater?
Invasion is an American science fiction television series that aired on ABC for one season beginning in September 21, 2005. Somewhat similar to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the show told the story of the aftermath of a hurricane in which water-based creatures infiltrate a small Florida town and begin to take over the bodies of the town's inhabitants through a cloning process (first by merging with and then unknowingly replacing them)(From Wikipedia)
Love, Andrea Lena
That's the one. Well made,
That's the one. Well made, but the alpha male antler locking got a bit tedious after a while.
Point Pleasant
Point Pleasant is the one with Satan's daughter. Its starred Elisabeth Harnois :)
Of course it was! Again a
Of course it was! Again a nice final scene.
Well....
Invasion is an American science fiction television series that aired on ABC for one season beginning in September 21, 2005. Somewhat similar to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the show told the story of the aftermath of a hurricane in which water-based creatures infiltrate a small Florida town and begin to take over the bodies of the town's inhabitants through a cloning process (first by merging with and then unknowingly replacing them)(From Wikipedia)
This explains our wonderful Governor Rick Scott
Great Last Scene
Worked at first because the victims genuinely didn't know what had happened to them. Later episodes contained a bit too much soap opera as the writers ran out of ideas. Great last scene, though.
To me Threshold seemed to have such promise
One of my favorite series that was given up on due to ratings was THRESHOLD. It aired the same year as INVASION (2005) and didn't last a whole season. What I loved about it was that so much was unexplained, hard to pigeonhole into one or another of the familiar alien invasion scenarios, the sentience that was invading was hinted as being from another dimension and was so alien; It was wonderful to not have everything figured out 3 episodes before it happened. They wouldn't have been able to keep that up indefinitely, most viewers demand that things make sense, and sooner rather than later, but I was in heaven watching this tantalizingly strange invasion unfold. Anyone who had contact with it started to change, and the dreams they had about a crystal forest reminded me strongly of THE CRYSTAL WORLD by JG Ballard and I think was inspired by it. There were some of other oblique references to Phil Dick stories and whatnot, and a set that payed tribute to Dr. Strangelove, stuff like that. And the fact that it had Peter Dinklage (the little Lanister prince from Game of Thrones) and Brent "Data" Spiner in it didn't hurt. The characters in the X-Files-like investigative team reminded me of but were a lot cooler than the ones that would populate the series FRINGE a year or so later.
And then there was JOHN FROM CINCINATTI, a real departure from the guy that brought us DEADWOOD, that also was cancelled before it was clear what was happening. It was like Twin Peaks set in a delapitated southern California surfing town; which may or may not have been about an alien and which I loved but I can see why nobody else did.
"Government will only recognize 2 genders, male + female,
as assigned at birth-" (In his own words:)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1lugbpMKDU
There are several I wish
There are several I wish hadn't been cancelled including, Firefly, Space above and beyond,and Farscape. Although at least Farscape had the Peacekeeper wars to finish it off, it could easily have run longer I liked its originality.
Big hugs
Lizzie :)
Bailey's Angel
The Godmother :p
Firefly was excellent. How it
Firefly was excellent. How it didn't get another series I'll never know. Shame on me for omitting it from my original list.
Space Above And Beyond had its moments, but there were too many scenes where the actors wore so much hardware you couldn't tell them apart. I also disliked the overt militarism. It stifled character development.
for me
I think life unexpected i watched the 2 seasons and i felt that it had a lot more potential if it had continued.
Firefly
There was 7 seasons of material done.
*Sobs*
Bailey Summers
Another gem I forgot to
Another gem I forgot to mention. American Gothic.
A few that come to mind.
Ask Harriet. Yeah, it was overly campy and a bit of a "shot" at crossdressing, but the cast was great and the writing was amazing.
Firefly, without a doubt was the best show on American TV in years. Best cast, great writing and a terrific story.
MST3K because it was just plain fun.
The Dresden Files. Very different detective/SciFi/Paranormal show with quirky, loveable characters and offbeat writing.
There are much older shows that I was sorry to see come to untimely, IMHO, ends.
Star Trek, of course. I was overjoyed to see the series continued as full length movies... well, except for ST5 which is sort of like Highlander 2... a "What If" kind of non-canon part of the series.
DS9 and Babylon 5 simply because I am a Science Fiction fan... and they were great shows.
M*A*S*H but it had kind of run it's course and ended logically.
Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue, The original cast of CSI.
SOAP!... BEST comedy TV program of all time.
Highlander: The TV Show.
Um... maybe I should quit now. I think I just gave away my age there.
I'm sure there are more shows I miss, but my memory isn't working all that well tonight. STOP LAUGHING!
Catherine Linda Michel... The old bat.
P.S. Oh my God, I almost forgot my fave show of all time... The Red Green Show! The best comedy show that never made it to American network status... Thank God. The major networks would have ruined it.
For those who aren't familiar with the show, all 300 episodes of the show are on youtube in their full lengths. Just type in, on youtube, The Red Green Show Full Eps. It was an entirely Canadian made and only showed on Canadian stations or PBS stations.
Also, Deep South. Sheesh! My memory just kicked in. Either that or one of my pills did.
As a T-woman, I do have a Y chromosome... it's just in cursive, pink script.
Alas, I must be in the wrong group :(
I still miss Earth II; and Enterprise. and still miss Futurama :( Quantum Leap, Kolchak the Night Stalker (old and new), and was it Fast Forward? So many, too many to count :(
Scaring the Man
Fire Fly spoke to so many people. There was so much truth being shown in fiction I think they were worried that us Brown Coats would get Ideas and start doing things for our selves.
Huggles
Michele
With those with open eyes the world reads like a book
Turn On
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063960/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_108
More seriously, M*A*S*H, no.
Actually, The Flash http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098798/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2 it had Mark Hamill as The Trickster.
Note that Turn On holds the record for shortest run of TV series actually broadcast (there are several that were canceled before airing an episode). Several TV Stations only aired part of the first and only episode, switching to something different after the first commercial break, and some stations in the western part of the US refused to air it after hearing about reactions in the east.
Whoops forgot The Adventures of Briscoe County Jr. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105932/?ref_=nv_sr_3
There's a couple I can think of.......
Besides the one's already mentioned. Heroes & Witches of Eastwick. I think both could have survived if the networks stopped messing with their scheduling! Hugs Talia
good list, but let me give the mirror list
what good-to-great show stayed too long?
My vote: Heroes. The first season was amazing. From then on, it went steadily downhill ...
Misfits - What Heroes Could Have Been
Charmed outstayed its welcome. Buffy and Angel knew exactly when to quit.
If you like Heroes, try to catch the UK series Misfits.
http://youtu.be/ud8AJDaAW7c
'He can turn back time, and you can do stuff with custard?'
Or a guy who can fuck super powers out of someone, together with a man trapped in the body of a reptile.
Leading, of course, to the unforgettable line 'I don't care, I'm still not shagging that tortoise'
Things tend not to end well in this show.
It's Like, You Know...
It's Like, You Know... was a sitcom that I thought was going to fill the gap left by Seinfeld. It was absurd, with lots of highly improbable stories, but I loved it and honestly was crushed when it was canceled after two seasons.
As an example, one episode had a rich character see "a famous doctor for a back injury, who convinces him the pain is due to lack of stress."
Jennifer Grey played herself on the show, and the running joke was that no one, not even her father Joel recognized her after she got a nose job.
The story took place in L.A., and one of the characters was Arthur Garment, a writer from Manhattan. In the final episodes he'd written a book of epigrams that encapsulated his dislike of L.A., but ironically the people of L.A. loved it -- particularly the mayor, who took to quoting the book in all his public appearances.
The only epigram I can remember now is: "All conversations in L.A. are variations on the theme The three of us went there in two cars."
I suppose that one thing the show taught me is that it's possible to write about implausible things in a realistic way.
As far as having a trans character goes
The Education of Max Bickford was kinda interesting.
network pinheads...
that insist on putting shows that compete for the same audience against each other should be shot. (pet peeve aired)
a lot of good stuff has been mentioned, i'd also include:
crusade
tucker's witch
fox's werewolf was good but needed to be an hour show
the green hornet (not the movie version)
the middle men
veronica mars (although there is supposed to be a direct to blue ray movie released this year)
I wonder how a series like
'The Bridge' would get on in the US.
It is a real slow burner.
For those who don't know, it is a Danish/Swedish series about things that happen/originate on the bridge that links the two countries. The big downer is that is in Danish with English subtitles.
It is shown on BBC-4 here in the UK. We are series 2 at the moment.
My only crit of it is that I have a hard time understanding which country the action is in. PArt of it is in Malmo and other bits are in Copenhagen.
I would expect that it probably wouldn't get a look in as far as US networks go. Far too subtle, slow and not enough crash bang wallop or hanky panky for their likening.
Shows I miss
Threshold.
Finder (one of the main cast members died after the first season)
Kindred (despite being an Aaron Spelling show was pretty good)
SGU
Bab 5 Crusade.
TV program
there one I watch years ago I think it was from UK or maybe i'm wrong it was call Benny Hill may he rest in peace I thought that show was funny
Quark and Salvage 1
Two SF comedies about 35 years ago.
Quark starred Dick Benjamin as Captain Adam Quark a space-going garbage man with a quirky crew. It was created by Buck Henry, co-creator of Get Smart. The ship's engineer, Jeen, had two personalities, one stereotypically macho and the other very feminine if a bit silly. The show had the quirky humor of Get Smart and the ability to go completely over-the-top while still maintaining a goofy logic. It lasted 8 episodes.
Salvage I starred Andy Griffith as Harry Broderick, a junkyard owner who builds a spaceship, the Vulture, in his junkyard to go into space and salvage abandoned equipment. While the writers had a lot of fun with the concept, the producers made an effort to keep the science within reason. Isaac Asimov was their technical advisor. Griffith was one of the producers on the show and it was a minor hit but was canceled early in the second season when Griffith came down with a severe case of the flu which eventually lead to Guillain-Barré paralyzation that helped derail his next series, the Yeagers (sort of like Dallas) and recurrences even affected filming of Matlock for years.
Both shows had excellent scripts, very capable acting, and were unlike anything else on TV except slightly like each other. Quark's pilot was in 1977, series in 1978. Salvage had a TV movie pilot in '78 and the first season began in January '79 with the second season beginning in the fall the same year. Some episodes of both shows are available online and Salvage the movie and Salvage 1 the TV show are occasionally re-run on some cable network.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.