Sometimes we can't help but wonder what television channels or streaming services were thinking when canceling a TV show. Viewership and cost are the usual suspects behind why a fan favorite TV show doesn't last as long as it should, but that doesn't mean it was a failure.
We're taking a look back at seven science fiction and fantasy shows that we cancelled way too soon, beginning with a show that everyone can agree on:
Firefly
Fans young and old can agree that Firefly was cancelled too soon, after only one season. Created by Joss Whedon and starring Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin, Gina Torres, Jewel Staite, Sean Maher, Summer Glau, and Ron Glass, this legendary science fiction show from 2002 has one of the most powerful fan bases on the planet.
Love, action, and humor abound aboard the spaceship Serenity, where our wacky band of space-faring outlaws lived and worked together. One of the great things about science fiction is how creative the stories can become by taking familiar concepts such as piracy and government, and turning them into epics that excite and thrill.
At the time, Firefly got scrapped due to low viewership. However, Fox also aired episodes of out of order, making it hard for potential fans to get attached. The show never had a chance to leave Earth's atmosphere.
But that doesn't mean Firefly was a failure, and it has since become a cult classic. Fan excitement was so powerful that the cast and crew reunited for a movie in 2005: Serenity.
Carnivale
Whenever I see posts about short-lived fantasy or science fiction shows, I am baffled that HBO's Carnivale is absent. Am I the only one who loved and remembers this show? I've still got Ben's Theme (the end titles song) stuck in my head all these years later.
Carnivale ran for two seasons on HBO, from 2003-2005. It starred Nick Stahl, Tim DeKay (Jonesy!), Michael J. Anderson, Clancy Brown, and Clea DuVall, among others. The show had a very large cast, but mostly followed two characters: Ben (Stahl) and Brother Justin (Brown), who were living in the Midwest during the Dust Bowl. Ben is found and picked up by a traveling carnival after the death of his mother and loss of his home while Brother Justin and his sister Irish lead a strong and faithful congregation. Ben happens to be blessed or cursed with a gift to give life by taking it from something else, and Brother Justin is often plagued by dark powers he can't seem to control.
Carnivale was arguably way ahead of its time, developing its large cast of characters while exploring themes of religion, violence, and uncertainty in a period setting. As season 2 ramped up, connecting Ben and Brother Justin, the finale ended on a sad and unfulfilling cliffhanger with the death of a core, beloved character, and Brother Justin perhaps surviving the planned attack without the carnival knowing.
Could someone please pick this up and bring it back?
Paper Girls
What do you get when you combine time travel with the 1980s? An awesome show that was canceled after only one season...
Amazon's Paper Girls is one of the most highly underrated science fiction shows in recent memory; it channels the same kind of nostalgic sci-fi spirit as Stranger Things over on Netflix. Four paper girls (Riley Lai Nelet, Sofia Rosinsky, Fina Strazza, and Camryn Jones) find themselves traveling into the future, meeting their future selves, and becoming unintentionally involved with a time-travelers quarrel.
Based on the comic book of the same name, Paper Girls was not renewed for reasons I simply can't understand. Who wouldn't want a story that takes place in the 1980s that combines everyday, mundane life with something out of the ordinary? Our core group of characters work fantastically well together, and the show itself tackles some pretty serious subjects.
Like many, if not all, of the shows on our list, Paper Girls concludes with a pretty intense cliffhanger. At least we can find out what happens in the comics.
The Winter King
I may be on the odds with this one, but The Winter King had potential. Yes, it was another failed take on the King Arthur story, and yes, it was another adaptation that does not stay faithful to the source material: The Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell. (Can someone PLEASE a show that sticks to the books already?!) But this show was still worth watching.
Lasting only one season, the MGM+ show starring Iain De Caestecker, Stuart Campbell, Valene Kane, and Jordan Alexandra focused on an adult Arthur still coming into his powers as a leader. Even though this isn't what I am normally familiar with when it comes to the Arthurian legend, the show had promise, alongside a well-rounded cast, great costumes, cinematography, and music.
The trouble is that basing anything on King Arthur is often risky. It's a tale as old as time, yet no one can truly seem to tell it in a way that keeps audiences gripped and starving for more. Another advantage the show had was that the source material was excellent, but we've already discussed how the show deviated from the text.
Invasion (ABC)
One of the things that I found to be most enjoyable when making this list was looking back at the shows from the early to late 2000s and realizing how far the science fiction and fantasy genres have come. Before the time of streaming services, TV shows were competing with each other more than ever. Is that why ABC's Invasion was canceled after one season? We may never know.
Starring William Fichtner, Lisa Sheridan, Kari Matchett, and Evan Peters, Invasion reminded us just how scary aliens can be. These ones snatched dead bodies to make clones. We'll probably never know what was going to happen after the season 1 cliffhanger, when the aliens landed on Earth in the same spot where a hurricane was raging.
This show needed a conclusive ending but never got one. Now we can only imagine what might have been.
I Am Not Okay With This (Netflix)
Unfortunately, I Am Not Okay With This met its early end after one season due to budgetary and production concerns brought on by the unforeseen pandemic in 2020. Originally, the Netflix show starring Sophia Lillis, Wyatt Oleff, Sofia Bryant, and Kathleen Rose Perkins was supposed to run for two seasons, but instead fans got treated to a story cut extremely short.
Based on the comic book of the same name, I Am Not Okay With This was an interesting combination of black comedy and sci-fi. It's about a teenager (Lillis) discovering she has psychokinetic powers triggered by emotions. Her life isn't perfect; she's dealing with family issues while going to school and trying to navigate life as a teen.
What made this show so compelling was how the cast and story worked so perfectly together. Audiences could relate to the situations, even when something out of the ordinary occurred. The fans were crushed by the show's cancellation, knowing there was so much left unsaid and unexplored.
Santa Clarita Diet
Last but not least is the hilarious, slightly gruesome Santa Clarita Diet. For three seasons, audiences fell in love with married couple and real estate agents Sheila and Joel Hammond, played by Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant.
Together with their daughter Abby (Liv Hewson) and her best friend turned boyfriend Eric (Skyler Gisondo), life in Santa Clarita, California seems pretty normal until Sheila becomes a zombie. Yes, a literal zombie who needs to eat people to survive, just without looking gross and decayed.
While Sheila tries to navigate this new lifestyle change, Joel is roped into helping while also trying to figure out how this happened and prevent others from learning the horrid truth. For some, three seasons may sound ideal, but the show, like so many others on this list, ended on a cliffhanger that could change everything for the couple.
Santa Clarita Diet also featured the acting talents of Nathan Fillion, Andy Richter, and Mary Elizabeth Ellis. It was both a shock and a shame to see the plug get pulled just when things were finally beginning to settle into place for the characters, plus one crazy change I have been wondering about for years since.
Which science fiction or fantasy show do you think was canceled far too soon?
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