Shows which died before their time

[D Moness]

exosquad

Such a great American mech cartoon. It was targeted at kids but the great characters and mature story made it popular for all ages.

The gist is humans created a superior slave race (neo-sapiens) that rebelled and conquered the solar system and a group of humans is trying rebel from their former slaves. There's a lack of black and white between the factions keeping it interesting.

Wow someone else remembers that except me. Third season got scrapped such a shame since season 2 build up to something great and ended with a damned cliffhanger.

Swatcats : Last eps got scrapped because they deemed it to violent.
Dungeon and dragons animation : Last episode was never made (script was done and ready)
Jace and the wheeled warriors : Story would be wrapped up with a movie that got cancelled.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Samurai Jack. One more season, and we could have finished the series. But no! Apparently children don't like shows with a more mature writing style than "There is the bad guy! Get 'em!"

He's hoping to one day make a movie wrapping it up, something that I will gladly pay to see myself. I enjoyed the show.

Wolverine and the X-men. Finally a good X-men TV show that I think was on par with the 90's cartoon show, and because of infighting with television stations, the show gets cancelled after one season. Anyone here seen the final episode? Tragic how the show just ends that way.

Also, Spectacular Spider-Man, Yin-Yang-Yo, Outlaw Star, and Reboot. I'm sure there are other shows, but I can't think of them at the moment.

Um, you do know that Outlaw Star finished right? As in they ended their story properly and were not actually cancelled. All 26 episodes can be found on DVD and on the internet.

They finished the arc. The way the season ended, it was apparent that they wanted to make more and they didn't.

 

[hyzaku]

Samurai Jack. One more season, and we could have finished the series. But no! Apparently children don't like shows with a more mature writing style than "There is the bad guy! Get 'em!"

He's hoping to one day make a movie wrapping it up, something that I will gladly pay to see myself. I enjoyed the show.

Wolverine and the X-men. Finally a good X-men TV show that I think was on par with the 90's cartoon show, and because of infighting with television stations, the show gets cancelled after one season. Anyone here seen the final episode? Tragic how the show just ends that way.

Also, Spectacular Spider-Man, Yin-Yang-Yo, Outlaw Star, and Reboot. I'm sure there are other shows, but I can't think of them at the moment.

Um, you do know that Outlaw Star finished right? As in they ended their story properly and were not actually cancelled. All 26 episodes can be found on DVD and on the internet.

They finished the arc. The way the season ended, it was apparent that they wanted to make more and they didn't.

I didn't get that feel from it (maybe I missed something subtle back then). I mean the manga only had 3 volumes, so it's not like it was a super popular long running series. Besides, most animes only run 13 or 26 episode seasons. Heck, Gravitation had 12 volumes but got butchered into a mere 13 episodes. Never mind things like Hellsing, FMA, and Soul Eater that got their endings butchered because the anime was going to pass up the manga.

By comparison, Outlaw Star at least got an ending that tied things up, even if it did leave a few open threads for a possible sequel. It wouldn't be the first anime to leave a few open ends at any rate.

OT: I now recall that the Star Ocean EX anime ended too early. It only covered events through the first disk, which makes me rather sad as I loved seeing Ashton and I was quite looking forward to the proper ending for the story.

 

[Crazy_Dude]

Stargate Universe. Hasn't been cut yet but it has been announced.
That show is awesome.

Nothing compared to the sudden demise of Stargate Atlantis. Why couldnt they have 2 shows run at the same time? Worked great with SGA and SG-1.

Also Firefly but that is stating the obvious.

 

[BlackEagle95]

"CLASS OF 3000 SING LA-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la."
"Funk what tell your grandma that we gotta THROW DOWN (AWWWW YEAAAH)"
"Hey hey hey Blob.Ya going down.the Wesley mob.Gown make ya frown."

Goodbye forever...

You beautiful Ninja!

Also Samurai Jack, if you can't tell from the this guy:
<-----

 

[Sonic Doctor]

And then they put the planned Stargate Atlantis movie on indefinite hiatus because Stargate Universe got cancelled. Good business sense there.

Ya I don't know who took over at that channel, but it has been steadily going down hill since it changed from the Sci-Fi channel to the SyFy channel. Who every it is that thought SyFy is an awesome change needs to have a strict talking to. It is not hip or cool or whatnot, it is just plain stupid.

Nothing compared to the sudden demise of Stargate Atlantis. Why couldnt they have 2 shows run at the same time? Worked great with SGA and SG-1.

Also Firefly but that is stating the obvious.

I'm guessing that whoever took over the channel when it changed its name, decided that there wasn't enough budget for two shows, and they stupidly hanged all their hopes on the new show, even though they should have known that Universe was going to fail.

Firefly is a sad case as well. Back when Fox canceled it, the old Sci-Fi channel offered to buy up the rights so that they could save it, but Fox held onto it like it was something special, but not special enough to allow it to be saved.

Ok if you don't like it fair enough I know it departed far from the Stargate norm but I just want to make a point that the series was in decline anyway. If it wasn't the things like Ark of Truth and Continuum wouldn't of been the movies. SGA also did quite crap in its first and second seasons as far as I remember but back then the show had enough steam to keep it going to a point where it was viable. The problem I have with SGU being cancelled is that they needed to set up those big story arcs they planned for which is why it was shit at the start. It was only starting to find itself. So take from that what you will.

I liked Ark and Continuum. I think SG-1 had a good run, it needed to have a good ending and it did. The reason it didn't fair so well in the last couple of seasons, is that Richard Dean Anderson was a large part of the shows charm. SGA gained good enought praise, because it was adding to the ancient storyline.

If you want to blame someone for SGU getting canceled, blame the writers. I understand trying something different, but there is such a thing as doing something different in a set formula.

The set formula being worked with in SG-1 and Atlantis, was the Sci-Fi genre style of storytelling. In that formula plot that deals with technology, science, space, or aliens is key. Characters are always a second priority. Characters are to be slowly written in over time. We find out little bits about them, but not in giant bursts. Plus, in TV shows, episodes can only center but not totally be about 1 or 2 characters, only one strong relationship an episode. They overflowed the episodes with character stories, and that just can be done. In main episodes, it wasn't clear who or what the episode was truly about, because the episode would be cut into these sections:

Sci-fi Plot: 10 minutes at the most.
A Colonel and Rush story, mixed with the medic: 10 minutes
Ely, Chloe, and Scott stupid love triangle: 10 minutes
Meeting of all the scientists: 7 minutes
Every other episode almost, the civilian leader going back with the stones to have her lesbian relationship: A horrible waste of 5 minutes.

That adds up to 42 minutes, the usual length of an episode once commercials are removed.

That is not a sustainable formula. It doesn't have enough time devoted to Sci-fi plots. There is only room for one plot really so they either have to make it just an episode plot or an arching season plot.

This is a good formula:

Sci-fi plots: 30 minutes at least. Gives room for an episode Sci-fi plot and an arching Sci-fi plot as well.

Character plots: 12 minutes. They can either use the whole twelve minutes on one character or a relationship between two or three characters, or they can brake that in half and have 6 minutes for two separate quick character plots.

They concentrated heavily on characters for the sake of the plot being pushed aside. Sci-Fi is a genre that hangs on plot, one cannot push it aside, it will most certainly kill whatever story is being told.

Character stories in Sci-fi literature are around and succeed, but only if one puts the plot on the back burner from the start. The writers of SGU gave us this huge Sci-fi plot with the people being stranded on this ancient ship without anybody knowing where it is going and wondering what is with the older than normal technology involved. In the realm of Sci-fi, they can't give us a major plot like that and then relatively ignore it for as long as they did. I have never seen a show with a plot that big going so slow and succeeding. The only way for a show to spread out a plot like that so slowly, over seasons, is if they subtly added it in over time, but they have to have another major Sci-fi plot to deal with and finish in each episode, and a major one that archs for a season.

SGU did not have any really good major Sci-fi plot archs that lasted for a season. Plus, they didn't have a very good enemy, the enemy aliens were way too mysterious and didn't come up in the show enough.

In the end, SGU was a failure because the writers skipped too far off the norm, Sci-fi is a heavily structured genre where such skipping off can't be done successfully, unless one ignores the structure from the start, one can't start with the structure and then randomly abandon it.

They should have stayed with the formula that worked, if they had, the show would be succeeding.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Ok if you don't like it fair enough I know it departed far from the Stargate norm but I just want to make a point that the series was in decline anyway. If it wasn't the things like Ark of Truth and Continuum wouldn't of been the movies. SGA also did quite crap in its first and second seasons as far as I remember but back then the show had enough steam to keep it going to a point where it was viable. The problem I have with SGU being cancelled is that they needed to set up those big story arcs they planned for which is why it was shit at the start. It was only starting to find itself. So take from that what you will.

I liked Ark and Continuum. I think SG-1 had a good run, it needed to have a good ending and it did. The reason it didn't fair so well in the last couple of seasons, is that Richard Dean Anderson was a large part of the shows charm. SGA gained good enought praise, because it was adding to the ancient storyline.

If you want to blame someone for SGU getting canceled, blame the writers. I understand trying something different, but there is such a thing as doing something different in a set formula.

The set formula being worked with in SG-1 and Atlantis, was the Sci-Fi genre style of storytelling. In that formula plot that deals with technology, science, space, or aliens is key. Characters are always a second priority. Characters are to be slowly written in over time. We find out little bits about them, but not in giant bursts. Plus, in TV shows, episodes can only center but not totally be about 1 or 2 characters, only one strong relationship an episode. They overflowed the episodes with character stories, and that just can be done. In main episodes, it wasn't clear who or what the episode was truly about, because the episode would be cut into these sections:

Sci-fi Plot: 10 minutes at the most.
A Colonel and Rush story, mixed with the medic: 10 minutes
Ely, Chloe, and Scott stupid love triangle: 10 minutes
Meeting of all the scientists: 7 minutes
Every other episode almost, the civilian leader going back with the stones to have her lesbian relationship: A horrible waste of 5 minutes.

That adds up to 42 minutes, the usual length of an episode once commercials are removed.

That is not a sustainable formula. It doesn't have enough time devoted to Sci-fi plots. There is only room for one plot really so they either have to make it just an episode plot or an arching season plot.

This is a good formula:

Sci-fi plots: 30 minutes at least. Gives room for an episode Sci-fi plot and an arching Sci-fi plot as well.

Character plots: 12 minutes. They can either use the whole twelve minutes on one character or a relationship between two or three characters, or they can brake that in half and have 6 minutes for two separate quick character plots.

They concentrated heavily on characters for the sake of the plot being pushed aside. Sci-Fi is a genre that hangs on plot, one cannot push it aside, it will most certainly kill whatever story is being told.

Character stories in Sci-fi literature are around and succeed, but only if one puts the plot on the back burner from the start. The writers of SGU gave us this huge Sci-fi plot with the people being stranded on this ancient ship without anybody knowing where it is going and wondering what is with the older than normal technology involved. In the realm of Sci-fi, they can't give us a major plot like that and then relatively ignore it for as long as they did. I have never seen a show with a plot that big going so slow and succeeding. The only way for a show to spread out a plot like that so slowly, over seasons, is if they subtly added it in over time, but they have to have another major Sci-fi plot to deal with and finish in each episode, and a major one that archs for a season.

SGU did not have any really good major Sci-fi plot archs that lasted for a season. Plus, they didn't have a very good enemy, the enemy aliens were way too mysterious and didn't come up in the show enough.

In the end, SGU was a failure because the writers skipped too far off the norm, Sci-fi is a heavily structured genre where such skipping off can't be done successfully, unless one ignores the structure from the start, one can't start with the structure and then randomly abandon it.

They should have stayed with the formula that worked, if they had, the show would be succeeding.

I am not saying it didn't have a good run(SG1) but it was in decline. I am not saying the movies are bad either but they shouldn't of been movies. Well Continuum was more of a movie. Yes and all those reasons are part of why SGU was cancelled. They didn't bring the real Sci Fi into it until too late. I do think a big reason is that the series as a whole was running out of steam. This meant only core fans watched. This meant the changes would be even less accepted.

Yes it is the writers fault and yes a lot of the character stories were boring this is why I think it was cancelled before its time. I wouldn't of minded if they cancelled it after the first season maybe the second but now it is actually starting to get decent maybe even good and they drop it.

 

[AvsJoe]

Odd Job Jack was a quirky little Canadian animated show about a temp who would find ways to fail at whatever job he was placed. It was really funny but few people watched it and it faded quickly from television and memory.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Yes it is the writers fault and yes a lot of the character stories were boring this is why I think it was cancelled before its time. I wouldn't of minded if they cancelled it after the first season maybe the second but now it is actually starting to get decent maybe even good and they drop it.

Yes, and as I said before in one of my early posts in this thread:

Yes it has gotten better in the last couple of episodes, but only because these last episodes were written and made after the news came that the show would be canceled.

This forced the writers to give up the character stories for the most part, and concentrate on plot so that the series doesn't end too much on a "WTF well what happened with that big Sci-fi plot the show started out with and barely touched on throughout" moment at the end. It must have been hard to wrap it up, because they now have to fit probably 2 or 3 extra seasons of drawn out plot into 3 episodes.

If the writers didn't have that hanging over their heads, and it hadn't been canceled, we probably wouldn't have seen some of the things we have been seeing until like the end of season 4 or the beginning of 5, if it got that far.

And hears the stupidity of it all: Because they drew things out, we definitely not know what that signal was the Rush had found that could possible lead to something that would give us an answer to who or what created the universe.

 

[Bakuryukun]

Reboot. It was SO close to being done but nooooo. they left us with "Prepare for...The Hunt"

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Yes it is the writers fault and yes a lot of the character stories were boring this is why I think it was cancelled before its time. I wouldn't of minded if they cancelled it after the first season maybe the second but now it is actually starting to get decent maybe even good and they drop it.

Yes, and as I said before in one of my early posts in this thread:

Yes it has gotten better in the last couple of episodes, but only because these last episodes were written and made after the news came that the show would be canceled.

This forced the writers to give up the character stories for the most part, and concentrate on plot so that the series doesn't end too much on a "WTF well what happened with that big Sci-fi plot the show started out with and barely touched on throughout" moment at the end. It must have been hard to wrap it up, because they now have to fit probably 2 or 3 extra seasons of drawn out plot into 3 episodes.

If the writers didn't have that hanging over their heads, and it hadn't been canceled, we probably wouldn't have seen some of the things we have been seeing until like the end of season 4 or the beginning of 5, if it got that far.

And hears the stupidity of it all: Because they drew things out, we definitely not know what that signal was the Rush had found that could possible lead to something that would give us an answer to who or what created the universe.

Well who knows there could always be a reboot like V where they can do it again but next time not make the same mistakes.

 

[steeple]

since most of whats possible to say here is already ninjad, Ill go with something made in my country called "m.k 22", an animated show about the army, which was fucking hilarous...
only had a bit more then 10 episodes and one season, before it got cancelled

 

[Hawkmoon269]

Blame Stargate Universe, they canceled Atlantis because they thought SGU would do better. They F-ed up big time with SGU. The stupid little angsty space soap opera.

And then they put the planned Stargate Atlantis movie on indefinite hiatus because Stargate Universe got cancelled. Good business sense there.

No offence, but thats not entirely true. They didnt make a Stargate Atlantis movie for the same reason they didnt make the third SG-1 movie, MGM suffered big time from the economic downturn, and there wasn't funding about to make the films.
Plus, SG-A was only cancelled prematurely because the creators wanted to end it on a ratings high, rather than have it decline like SG-1 did. My guess is that originally they intended to shift the franchise into more feature length productions, but like i said, the economic downturn messed all that up.

As for SG-U, its just my opinion, but I really liked it. Yes it was obviously meant to "go dark" like the new Battle Star did, but the story was engaging, and by the current point in season two, the characters were really starting to open up and the plot was developing nicely. Lets not forget, SG-1 was pretty damn rough around the edges when that first began. It only got good because it was given a chance to improve.


aaaaand, on a totally separate note, my choice cancelled-before-its-time show: "Life as we know it". A great, quirky, humorous teen drama that I loved when I was younger. Well written, very entertaining.... barely made it past one season. Shame

 

[Kair]

Supernatural:

In the way that it ended somewhere along season 3 where Kripke decided to go from incoherent monster-ganking episodes to "Previously on [insert soap opera here]"-Soap opera episodes.

That show went from targeting a wide audience to targeting housewives (and the sad part is: it generated a lot more revenue and viewers that way). Kripke is a damn sell out.

 

[Liberaliter]

The Day Today and Brass Eye, two of the greatest shows ever concieved ended far too soon. Although anything more than one series isn't really Chris Morris' style.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Eek the Cat/Thunder Lizards
Earthworm Jim

 

[OhSnap]

Blame Stargate Universe, they canceled Atlantis because they thought SGU would do better. They F-ed up big time with SGU. The stupid little angsty space soap opera.

And then they put the planned Stargate Atlantis movie on indefinite hiatus because Stargate Universe got cancelled. Good business sense there.

No offence, but thats not entirely true. They didnt make a Stargate Atlantis movie for the same reason they didnt make the third SG-1 movie, MGM suffered big time from the economic downturn, and there wasn't funding about to make the films.
Plus, SG-A was only cancelled prematurely because the creators wanted to end it on a ratings high, rather than have it decline like SG-1 did. My guess is that originally they intended to shift the franchise into more feature length productions, but like i said, the economic downturn messed all that up.

As for SG-U, its just my opinion, but I really liked it. Yes it was obviously meant to "go dark" like the new Battle Star did, but the story was engaging, and by the current point in season two, the characters were really starting to open up and the plot was developing nicely. Lets not forget, SG-1 was pretty damn rough around the edges when that first began. It only got good because it was given a chance to improve.


aaaaand, on a totally separate note, my choice cancelled-before-its-time show: "Life as we know it". A great, quirky, humorous teen drama that I loved when I was younger. Well written, very entertaining.... barely made it past one season. Shame

Why would I be offended? >>

And I was basing my statement on "Joseph Mallozzi stated: "I'm sorry to say but the cancellation [of Stargate Universe] puts the brakes on whatever progress the SGA movie had made in the past month, shelving it indefinitely. ... Contrary to what some may think, the cancellation of SGU is very bad news for those looking forward to an Atlantis movie." "

Eek the Cat/Thunder Lizards
Earthworm Jim

Earthworm Jim! I loved that show. Now I must go watch it. Need more original shows like that, maybe then I'd actually bother with TV instead of watching everything online.

 

[mew4ever23]

Reboot. Clearly there was more planned, since the last episode of season 4 ended on a cliffhanger. I could do with a proper ending.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

*Snip*

Well who knows there could always be a reboot like V where they can do it again but next time not make the same mistakes.

That would be nice. I wouldn't mind if they did it right away, it would be fine if they kept the same actors, but retconned it by saying something to the effect that what had previously occurred was one of those alternate realities that SG-1 liked to do. Then we actually get a real show that they make with the proper style, toning down the character story parts of the show. Keep Rush relatively the same and I wouldn't mind if the other characters got changed around a bit with their personalities.

It would be good at least.

 

[RonHiler]

I'm still bitter that they cancelled Studio 60 after one season. An actual intelligent show amongst the crapfest that is the TV landscape these days. Too bad it couldn't find it's audience.