If you’re a fan of sci-fi, fantasy, superheroes, and anything else generally nerdy, 2022 was a great year for TV. Between House of the Dragon, Star Wars: Andor, The Sandman and much more, our cups runneth over.
But not every show was so lucky. A lot of series met their ends this past year, some of them before they’d gotten a second season and others right as they were reaching the finish line. In this post, we take a moment to commemorate them, and maybe, in a couple of rare cases, hold out hope for more.
Westworld
The biggest shock cancellation of the year was Westworld. There was a time when this heady sci-fi drama was one of the jewels in HBO’s crown. For that first season, it had people glued to their screens. Who was a host and who a human? What was the meaning of the Maze? What is the nature of consciousness? Westworld was asking big questions and doing it with style, with plenty of violent delights and violent ends included for the masses.
But with each subsequent season, the show got a little more boring, a little more confusing, and a little easier to ignore. By the time season 4 rolled around, most of the that original audience was gone. HBO put almost no marketing behind the thing, and the new episodes came and went with a fizzle.
That said, the show was still a high-quality production — season 4 was an improvement on season 3, even if fewer people watched — and the ending clearly set up one final lap. So for HBO to pull the plug was still a shock.
There’s a good chance the choice to end Westworld was made by the new regime ushered in by new Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who will reappear on this list later. So goodbye, Westworld: you were the best of shows, you were the meh of shows, and now you’ve been pulled off HBO Max to be aired on FAST streaming channels. An ignoble death and ignoble burial.
Warrior Nun
Netflix has a history of canceling shows left and right, and it lived up to that reputation in 2022. One of the most recent cancellations was Warrior Nun, about a quadriplegic orphan who discovers she has supernatural powers and who joins an order of — wait for it — warrior nuns.
Warrior Nun has a passionate fanbase who were very upset by the cancellation. Showrunner Simon Barry is fighting to save the show, but it’s anybody’s guess whether he’ll succeed.
Space Force
A workplace comedy about the newest branch of the U.S. military starring Steve Carrell and created by Greg Daniels, the guy behind The Office and Parks and Recreation? It sounds perfect! And Space Force had its moments…but not enough of them, and not enough people were tuning in to justify Netflix giving it more chances. The streamer cancelled Space Force after two seasons.
Resident Evil
Fun fact: Capcom’s Resident Evil franchise holds the record for the most screen adaptations of a video game series. This zombie franchise has had a lot of success over the years, but you can’t win all the time.
Netflix’s original Resident Evil show wasn’t close enough to the games to please longtime fans, nor was it accessible or good enough to attract newbies. Critics hated it, fans hated it, and the population in general shrugged it off. Numbers-wise, it had a decent release weekend and then fell off the radar completely. It’s gone.
Raising Dion
Raising Dion, based on the comic of the same name by Dennis Liu, has a cute idea: the story follows a widow, Nicole, who finds out that her young son Dion has superhero-like powers. It sounds like a neat enough on the superhero genre, and the reviews were generally good. But not enough people tuned in, so Netflix canceled Raising Dion after two seasons.
Stargirl
Usually, it’s hard to beat Netflix when it comes to canceling shows. But in 2022, The CW managed it. This year, The CW was bought by Nexstar Media Group, which had some very bold ideas about where to take the network. Namely, it was going to cancel most of the original programming The CW had become known for before pivoting into new areas.
We don’t know what those new areas look like yet, but we know what Nextel has chosen to give the axe. Most of the network’s teen-focused superhero shows are gone, including Stargirl.
Stargirl was about a teenaged girl, Courtney Whitmore, who discovers a cosmic staff wielded by the legendary hero Starman and who goes on to become an inspiration to a new generation of heroes. The show is now officially over, but at least it got in three good seasons before the end.
Legends of Tomorrow
Legends of Tomorrow, a superhero series that often sent its large cast on adventures through time, took itself a little seriously than some of the other superhero shows on The CW. It lasted for seven full seasons before it was canceled, but canceled it was.
Batwoman
Even before Nexstar took over, Batwoman had a turbulent production. The first season starred Ruby Rose in the title role, but she left and was replaced with Javicia Leslie, who was playing a new character who also assumed the role of Batwoman.
Like Stargirl, Batwoman got three seasons before it was axed.
Naomi
The final superhero show on the block is Naomi, about a teenager and Superman superfan who sets out to investigate a supernatural event that occurs in Port Oswego, Oregon.
Created by Oscar nominee Ava DuVernay, Naomi had a bit of a higher profile than most CW shows, but it was still canceled after just one season.
4400
In 2004, USA started airing The 4400, a sci-fi series about a group of 4,400 people, all of whom had vanished at some point over the last several decades, who showed up again in the Cascade Range foothills near Mount Rainier, Washington, none of them having aged a day. Where did they go? Why are they back. The show spent four season exploring those questions.
Later, in 2022, The CW mounted a remake of sorts called 4,400. Only this time the vanished individuals appeared in Detroit, no one watched, and the show was canceled after a single season on the air.
Charmed
Speaking of remakes, The CW’s reboot of Charmed — a trio about a trio of sisters who are also witches — ran for four seasons before it got the axe. At least this one lasted long enough to put some meat on its bones.
Roswell: New Mexico
Add one more remake to the pile: The CW brought back Roswell as Roswell, New Mexico. The faces were different, but the conceit — a blend of aliens-among-us sci-fi and high school drama — was the same. This one got four seasons, as well.
And thus ends a very rough year for The CW. May 2023 be better.
Raised By Wolves
Raised by Wolves was an HBO Max sci-fi show executive produced by none other than Alien director Ridley Scott. The show was wildly ambitious. It followed a couple of androids raising a group of human children after their home world was destroyed by a brutal religious wars. Throw in robot snake babies, oceans of acid, and a lot of religious imagery, you have a series that felt original if nothing else.
It might have been a tad too original for general audiences. Critics more or less liked Raised by Wolves, but while it attracted a passionate fanbase of devotees, it never caught on with the wider public. Maybe they’d never heard of it, or maybe they had heard of it and couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on. Either way, HBO Max canned the show after two seasons.
The Nevers
The Nevers, a drama about a super-powered group of women living in Victorian England, was created by since-disgraced television auteur Joss Whedon, the guy behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the first couple Avengers movies. HBO aired a suite of episodes back in 2021. They were zippy and imaginative, if a little twee at times.
But producers didn’t get to make a full season on account of the pandemic interrupting production. And then Joss Whedon left the production under a cloud of scandal. And the show wasn’t a huge hit to begin with.
That brings us to now. HBO has made several more episodes of The Nevers, but the show itself has been taken off HBO Max. It will now air on FAST (Free ad-supported streaming television) networks. Presumably, the final episodes will be burned off there, rather than aired on HBO proper.
It’s possible that HBO could continue the show after that, if the new episodes end up being a big hit or something, but those are extremely long odds.
The Expanse
Here’s another show that’s over…but maybe not forever? The Expanse ended its six-season run early this year on Amazon Prime Video. And this was after the first three seasons aired on SyFy. This sci-fi show is used to getting tossed around.
Writing under the pen names James S.A. Corey, Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck wrote nine books in their Expanse series. The show got to adapt six. Might we eventually see the final three? Franck isn’t ruling anything out. “We have what we think is a very natural pause point for the story after season 6,” Franck said around the time of the finale. “It’ll feel like a satisfying end to the story we’ve been building over the first five seasons. I think one of the things that is sort of an outmoded idea is the idea of being canceled.”
According to Franck, producer Alcon Television Group is “very committed to the IP.” So although it is technically canceled, of all the shows on this list, The Expanse may have the best chance of coming back one day.
Will you miss any of these shows in particular, or are we better rid of them? Any series we left off?
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