Cancelled shows…

Updated on May 20, 2009 By Ken Begg 24 Comments

Most or all of the five broadcast networks have released their fall schedules, so here’s a rundown on what won’t be back.

ABC

According to Jim (seriously, that was still on?)
Cupid (just as successful as the first time they tried this show)
In the Motherhood (what now?)
Samantha Who?
The Unusuals

CBS

Eleventh Hour
Harper’s Island (well, it was one story anyway)
The Unit
Without a Trace (an actual show people watched!)
Worst Week

CW

Privileged

Fox

King of the Hill (it had a good run, I’ll tell you what, and unlike The Simpsons never became a pale shadow of its former self)
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (no surprise there)

NBC

Kath & Kim
Kings (too bad, looked kind of neat)
Knight Rider (it actually made the old show look kind of good)
Life
Lipstick Jungle
My Name is Earl (possibly to return on another network)
Medium (ditto)

NBC

Pin It



Related Posts

  • rizzo

    The only one of those that I watched was My Name is Earl, and that’s been going downhill since the end of the second season.

  • jzimbert

    Poor King of the Hill. Thanks for 12 (mostly) great years. I’m sure The Simpsons will be joining you shortly to make room for yet another Seth MacFarlane show. Hopefully with another talking baby!

  • MarshallDog

    Does that mean Law & Order will actually be back next year? That’s some good news. I hadn’t been watching the last few years because the cast kinda stagnated, but the three episodes I’ve caught this season have been very good. Maybe the show is benfitting mostly from the shorter season they’ve been running the last two years.

  • Anders S

    I’m happy as long as 30 Rock isn’t cancelled.

  • fish eye no miko

    I’m actually surprised about Without a Trace; I got the impression it drew a lot of the CSI/NCSI crowd. But I guess it’s just different enough that it doesn’t. Or maybe it’s on at a bad time, or something… still, wow.

    BTW, on CW: Reaper is also canceled. Which sucks, I liked it. And I’m still not convinced Satan is Sam’s dad; I think the Devil’s just letting him think that to string him along…

  • jzimbert

    The CW cancelled Reaper but Smallville and Supernatural are getting renewed again? There’s no justice.

  • fish eye no miko

    jzimbert: Yeah, I almost commented about Smallville getting a, what, 9th season, while poor Reaper gets killed at the end of its second.

  • Nathan

    I’ll miss King of the Hill, more fundamentally, I’ll miss Hank Hill…

    Bummer about Reaper, any chance they will do a decent finale?

  • tim

    the ratings for without a trace were pretty good. there’s an article on imdb saying it cost too much per episode to produce.
    I think there’s a much bigger crisis for network tv than the movie industry. tv audience is shrinking, while profits and attendance for the movies are up this year.

  • I read the script of The Unusuals pilot, and saw they not only ripped off a plot device form both Homicide and The Commish, but also seemed to be channeling the cast of Homicide as well, just badly. I never bothered to actually watch it, but if the pilot script was any indication, it was no loss.

    Oh, and it also had to toss in “unresolved tension” between the leads before the pilot even ended. Couldn’t we eliminate that concept for a few seasons? I am waiting for the show with a male and female lead who feel nothing for each other. Can’t think of one yet.

    The one I expect to be on life support next year is House. The ending this season left them with no room to move. I see three options: 1) He changes from treatment, which destroys their premise, 2) He doesn’t change, which makes the whole previous season pointless, or 3) They do part or all of the season revolving around his therapy, which would be excruciating. So I don’t see a way out from the corner they have painted themselves into.

    Though I have been wrong before.

  • jzimbert – Finding out how much Seth MacFarlane was paid to develop a new show actually bumped the amount Perez Hilton gets paid for advertising off the top of my list of “Most Depressing News”.

  • Tim is right that TV is in a more steadily worse condition than the movies, but they’re still heading towards the same massive shakeup. TV has been coasting on an increasingly obsolete model. It was designed for a mass culture; and we don’t have those anymore. Therefore you can’t afford to spend huge amounts of money on one show. It just doesn’t make sense.

    The movies are gliding by on the good times now, but the bills will come due. Living in the moment, the unions who had been temporarily kept from striking by the recession will look to one’s quarter year’s good returns and demand better contracts which will majorly bite the industry in the ass when a rough patch hits.

    Indeed, the contracts are bad enough as they stand.
    Think of the dire financial condition so many of our major states (California, New York, etc.) are in right now, since they didn’t put any money aside during the good times, but just increased spending.

    I don’t expect anybody to heed the essential message–that it isn’t sustainable for people in the film industry to make the same gigantic amounts of money any longer–until one or two of the major studios go under.

    I expect that will happen in the next ten years. However, yes, TV’s cancer is more advanced; that’s why you’re actually seeing major changes (although not nearly major enough) in the decades old model, as NBC abandons the third primetime hour with Jay Leno’s new talkshow, and the networks are largely out of the business of providing new programming over the weekends.

  • Ericb

    “Oh, and it also had to toss in “unresolved tension” between the leads before the pilot even ended. Couldn’t we eliminate that concept for a few seasons? I am waiting for the show with a male and female lead who feel nothing for each other. Can’t think of one yet”

    While the shows do have their flaws and there have been some exceptions (mostly on SVU) the Law & Order franchises have been pretty good at avoiding this trap.

  • Ericb-

    You’re right. I am surprised I overlooked that, but L&O has not only been good about avoiding any romance between the leads, but avoided any personal lives at all. They did allow in tiny hints here and there of their personal lives, but it was pretty trivial. They may have gotten a bit strident on some issues here and there, but that is their worst sin. Other than that, they did a pretty good job of sticking tot heir focus, the procedural part. (And to be fair, any stridency was largely part of the characters’ personalities, so it was explained away, even if I suspect it was also special pleading on the part of the writers as well…)

  • Mr. Rational

    I can’t wait for the day I see Family Guy on this list for good…or better yet, the day when Seth MacFarlane’s entire career gets cancelled. I’m sorry, anyone who likes his tasteless, non-sequitur-laced brand of comedy, but I’ll never forgive him for the shots he took at McCain.

  • fish eye no miko

    I always liked the the L&O shows kept to the cases instead of exploring the characters’ personal lives. CSI was like that at first, but it got into the personal stuff here and there… the original show still keeps it kind of light, but the spin-offs, especially Miami, really get into the personal stuff.
    I’ve actually not watched L&O in a while; I might have to check it out when it comes back next season,

  • Grumpy

    But… without my Sarah Connor Chronicles, how will I ever find out if John grows up into the savior of mankind?? There’s always hope that the saga will be continued somehow. Maybe in movie form.

  • The Rev. D.D.

    Mr. Rational’s post makes me think of when the late Isaac Hayes left South Park…

    Anyway, I hope they play out the rest of Harper’s Island. I’ve stuck with it long enough that not being able to see if one of my guesses on the killer will pan out wold kinda make me sad.

    I’d get over it since it’s not great, but it is interesting, with mostly decent acting, and I’ve been impressed with the various kill methods and by how gruesome it is for network television.

  • If nothing else, Harper’s Island should come out on DVD. Why wouldn’t it?

  • fish eye no miko

    The Rev. D.D.: You realize most of the vitriol in “The Return of Chef” was aimed at Scientology, not Hayes himself, right?

  • The Rev. D.D.

    fish eye–Not what I meant. I meant Hayes was fine with the show mocking anything and everything, until it took swipes at something close to home.

  • Toby Clark

    I kind of liked the Sarah Connor Chronicles, mainly because of Thomas Dekker and Summer Glau, but it had every single problem that bothered me about T2 and T3, and there was no way to end it without rehashing the end of either of those movies. It was a flawed concept to begin with, and I can’t say I’m sorry that it’s gone.

  • Mr. Rational

    Rev: My “South Park”-themed response would center around “Cartoon Wars,” which pretty much pwned “Family Guy.” My objections to the series really are with the style of comedy, which is not to my taste. As such, your “I bet you thought it was funny ’till it mocked YOU” response holds no water…since, with a couple exceptions (see: “Road to Rhode Island”), I never found it that funny to begin with.

    Sidebar: Does anyone else ever notice how, when someone says a comedy series isn’t funny and cites a particular moment, the response is always “Well, I guess THAT struck a little too close to home” — in other words, just a cleverly disguised ad hominem? Seriously, people, leave Freud behind. He wasn’t right about very much.

  • Mr. Rational

    Also, and I should have pointed this out in my last post, but — even if I did find “Family Guy” funny — I suspect I would still fail to see the humor in an American patriot, former POW, and then-presidential candidate being connected with Nazis.