Television can be heartbreaking, and we're not talking about the storylines. Sure, we all shed a tear or so when a beloved television character is killed off, but what's even worse is when a show you love gets canceled too soon after just one season, leaving the storyline unfinished and fans of the show wondering for years (if not forever) what happened to the characters.
Sometimes, fans rally behind a show that's gotten canceled, and either the network brings it back or another network or streaming service picks it up. This recently happened with NBC's Manifest, a show about a plane that mysteriously goes missing for five years. The people on the ground aged, but the people in the plane didn't. NBC canceled the show at the end of its third season, enraging fans who really needed to know exactly what the mystery behind flight 828 was. Netflix picked the series up and promised a fourth season of Manifest that will answer all the questions the first three seasons posed.
NBC's Timeless is an example of a show that got canceled after one season and was brought back thanks to a fan campaign on Twitter. The show got a second season and a two-hour season finale to wrap up its storyline. Unfortunately, the nine television shows below didn't get a chance to come back for a second season or even a special to wrap up storylines for their fans, though in the age of reboots, a couple of them have been remade in some capacity.
9 Battlestar Galactica 1978-1979
Back in the late 1970s, Battlestar Galactica made its first attempt at mounting a television series. The timing appeared to be perfect, as Star Wars: A New Hope had hit theaters nationwide in 1977 and grossed $307,263,857 (that's $1,465,886,905 when adjusted for inflation) domestically during its initial release. (An aside: in 1977, movie tickets cost $2.23, or $10.64 today.) The show, starring popular actors of the time including Lorne Greene, Dirk Benedict, and Richard Hatch, failed to capitalize on the popularity of Star Wars and was canceled after one season and 24 episodes.
This wasn't the ultimate end of the Battlestar Galactica franchise, however. It was brought back after fans wrote letters to the network (actual snail-mail letters that required effort to write, stamp, and send). Galactica 1980 aired for 10 episodes in 1980, but the really successful reboot would come nearly 25 years later. In 2004, the Syfy network brought Battlestar Galactica back with Grace Park, Tricia Helfer, Katee Sackhoff, and Edward James Olmos, andd would surprisingly become one of the best science-fiction TV shows of all time.
8 No Ordinary Family 2010
In 2010, No Ordinary Family premiered on ABC, starring Michael Chiklis, Julie Benz, Romany Malco, and Autumn Reeser. It was about the Powell family, who developed superpowers after their plane crashed in the Amazon jungle of Brazil, and began promisingly as a fascinating hybrid of the TV family drama with superhero shows. No Ordinary Family got positive critical reviews. Chiklis played Jim Powell Sr., whose new power was super-strength. Benz played Dr. Stephanie Powell, her superpower was super speed — she could run 10 miles in about five seconds, and also developed the ability to heal nearly instantly.
Kay Panabaker played 16-year-old Daphne Powell, who developed telepathy, and Jimmy Bennett played 14-year-old J.J. Powell who had powers of speed reading and the ability to become fluent in a new language nearly instantly. No Ordinary Family aired for 20 episodes and was canceled after just one season, despite a positive reception (especially for the aforementioned cast) and its interesting premise.
7 Firefly 2002-2003
Firefly premiered on Fox in 2002 and starred a great Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, and Summer Glau. It was an excellent space western set in the year 2517 and was created by Joss Whedon. The characters all live on the Firefly-class spaceship Serenity which arrives in a new star system. In the era that Firefly is set in, the Earth is referred to as "Earth-that-was" after Earth could no longer sustain life, and thus living beings emigrated to a new star system in ships.
Only 11 of the 14 episodes that were produced aired. The cancelation of Firefly was met with ire by its fans, who still wax philosophical about the series and are upset about its cancelation, though they were able to get a bit of closure in the follow-up film, Serenity. Good news for fans of Firefly: Disney+ has plans to reboot the series with all-new adventures for the crew of the spaceship.
6 Freaks and Geeks 1999-2000
Freaks and Geeks is another show that was canceled before its time much to the extreme angst of its fanbase. The teen comedy-drama was executive produced by Judd Apatow and created by Paul Feig. Set in 1980 and 1981 in a suburban Detroit high school, the series launched the careers of James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Segal, Linda Cardellini, and Busy Phillips. There were conflicts between Apatow and Feig and the NBC executives — mostly because NBC kept moving Freaks and Geeks around on its schedule. As such, the show was canceled after 12 of its 18 episodes had aired, but the creators and stars got the last laugh. Apatow and Feig have gone on to great success as have Franco, Rogen, Segal, Cardellini, and Phillips.
5 Bunheads 2012
Bunheads premiered on ABC Family (now known as Freeform) on June 11, 2012, and was created by Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel's Amy Sherman-Palladino. It starred Sutton Foster as a classically trained dancer turned Las Vegas showgirl who marries a man named Hubble on a whim and relocates to a sleepy central California beach town where, after Hubble dies in a car accident 24 hours after their wedding (and just hours after they consummated that marriage), she finds out he left his house and property to her. She must learn to get along with her mother-in-law (delightfully played by Gilmore Girls' Kelly Bishop) and run the ballet studio she owns with her. This was one of Sherman-Palladino's rare failures (the other being The Return of Jezebel James), and it was canceled after one wonderful season.
4 The Muppets 2015-2016
In the fall of 2015, fans of felt excitedly turned their TVs to ABC to catch the new show The Muppets. The whole gang was back, grown-up, and giving the audience a backstage look at the daily ins and outs of the production of the late-night talk show Up Late with Miss Piggy. The Muppets was delightful for people who grew up with Sesame Street and The Muppet Show (the most sensational inspirational muppetational...).
However, One Million Moms disagreed and protested the show as not being family-friendly (it was aimed at the adults who grew up with the Muppets, after all). The show delightfully parodied the protest with the episode "A Tail of Two Piggies," during which the One Million Angry Parents Association protested Miss Piggy's show after a wardrobe malfunction brings her unsavory media attention. The Muppets aired 16 episodes and was canceled after one season, but remains a unique anomaly in the charming Muppets universe.
3 Downward Dog 2017
Downward Dog featured the adventures of the millennial career gal Nan (an endearing Allison Tolman) and her dog Martin, who sees Nan as his life partner. Martin had an attitude, and he wasn't afraid to show it (through voiceover), especially when Nan wasn't paying enough attention to him. Downward Dog was a mid-season replacement that ABC produced eight episodes for. The show was well-received getting an approval rating of 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, but despite this, the show was canceled after one season, and its fans will never know what ultimately happened with Nan and Martin.
2 My So-Called Life 1994-1995
This one still hurts, nearly two decades later. Claire Danes starred as Angela Chase in the ABC series My So-Called Life. It was created by Winnie Holzman and launched the careers of Danes and the actor Jared Leto, Wilson Cruz, and A.J. Langer. The show was critically acclaimed for its realistic portrayal of teenage angst. Set in the fictional high school Liberty High School in a suburb of Pittsburgh, it won Danes the Golden Globe for her role.
The cancelation of My So-Called Life after one season marks the first time fans used the internet to mount a campaign to bring the show back. At the time, it was thought that Danes' reluctance to do a second season was the reason, but in reality, it came down to low ratings which can be attributed to a lack of promotion of the show by ABC. When it was canceled, ABC cited its "far too narrow appeal" as the reason.
1 Relativity 1996-1997
Relativity was a show set in Los Angeles about young couple Isabel Lukens (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) and Leo Roth (David Conrad) and their circle of friends and family. It was created by thirtysomething and My So-Called Life producers Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, and is notable for launching the careers of its actors, all of whom went on to great success on other series' including Williams-Paisley (Nashville), Conrad (Ghost Whisperer), Lisa Edelstein (West Wing and The Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce), Adam Goldberg (Friends, Dazed and Confused, Saving Private Ryan), Poppy Montgomery (Without a Trace), and Richard Schiff (West Wing and The Good Doctor). Relativity is also notable for featuring the first open-mouth kiss between two women on network television in 1997. Relativity was canceled after 17 episodes due to low ratings but remains a great alternative to more mainstream series like Friends.