Next Caller NBC
NBC

When it comes to comedies, NBC's in-house game is strong. In addition to airing the majority of these programs, the network and its affiliates are responsible for U.S. distribution of nearly every show on this list... and that doesn't include their streaming service, Peacock. While each of these shows proved short-lived on the network (if at all), their well-packaged impact on viewers, potential and otherwise, cannot be understated.

1 Bad Judge

Kate Walsh in Bad Judge
NBC

All rise for the honorable Kate Walsh!

Bad Judge featured Walsh as Rebecca Wright, an L.A. County Judge by day and a reckless, hard-partying woman the rest of the time. NBC had already played with the idea of an unscripted show with the same name in 2006, which would have featured Jon Lovitz in the leading role. In this version, Walsh served as an executive producer alongside co-creators Chad Kultgen and Anne Heche, Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Chris Henchy, Betsy Thomas, and Jill Sobel Messick.

While reviews of the show were subpar at best, its raunchy mix of class and humor had a definite appeal. It should be noted that the Florida Association for Women Lawyers protested the series for its portrayal of the esteemed bench. While the show was canceled after only five episodes, the rest of them did air on the network.

Despite all this, the series would go on to be nominated for a People’s Choice Award for Favorite New TV Comedy.

2 Powerless

Vanessa Hudgens and the cast of Powerless
NBC

Watch out for that… falling... building?

Powerless takes place in the DC Universe, where the collateral damage caused by both superheroes and villains is at an all-time high. Enter Wayne Security, a subsidiary of Wayne Enterprises. The company manufactures products that provide security for the rest of us innocent bystanders... though originally they were supposed to be a life insurance company specializing in super person deaths. Week to week, viewers followed Emily Locke in her new role as Director of Research and Development for the company. While parallel to the DC Universe, the series was not considered canonical.

The show proved to be a series of firsts for the cast, which included Vanessa Hudgens, Danny Pudi, Christina Kirk, Ron Funches, and Alan Tudyk (among others). It was Hudgens's first regular series role on a TV show and Pudi’s first since doing Community. It was also Tudyk’s first live-action DC role (he’s voiced Superman, The Green Arrow, and The Flash in other DC animated productions). While DC series, in general, have absolutely crushed it on the small screen in recent years, this series proved to be short-lived. It would only go on to premiere for one season in the Spring of 2017. NBC pulled the remaining three episodes from the schedule in April, choosing to air them online instead.

Related: Best Workplace Comedy Movies, Ranked

3 Great News

The Cast of Great News
NBC

Great Scott!

The very same year, viewers saw the premiere of this series about an up-and-coming television news producer who discovers the show’s new intern is none other than her mother. With Briga Heelan and Andrea Martin in the leading roles, the show also centered around the all-star zany cast and crew on the fake set.

Unfortunately, Great News received some not-so-great news in May 2018 when NBC canceled the series after its second season. In spite of this, the show has since garnered a respectable mid-70s ranking on its Rotten Tomatoes page. Series creator, producer, and actor Tracey Wigfield would go on to develop the Saved By the Bell revival on Peacock.

4 Next Caller

This unaired series centered around an unlikely duo of (satellite) radio jockeys who are forced to share the mic for a call-in show. Had it aired, Next Caller would have featured comedian Dane Cook alongside Jeffrey Tambor, Colette Wolfe, and Chris Perfetti. With a lineup like this, it’s a wonder how only four of five episodes were filmed, let alone the series being scrapped altogether. While an order was placed for the series in May 2012, it would soon be rescinded later that year due to "creative differences."

5 A to Z

Ben Feldman and Cristin Milioti in A to Z
NBC

Not one to shy away from a catchy acronym, this charming series was intended to chronicle the—count it—eight months, three weeks, five days, and one hour of a budding new relationship.

A to Z followed the romantic entanglement of an idealistic dating website employee and a non-nonsense lawyer. Narrated by Katey Sagal, the series also starred Ben Feldman, Cristin Milioti, and Henry Zebrowski. Sagal and Feldman would go on to co-star (though not together) in several TV projects, while Milioti and Zebrowski would go on to appear together in The Wolf of Wall Street.

The series started off strong, with generally favorable reviews all around, but dropped nearly half its viewership after the fifth episode. Though it promised the entire alphabet, the show had only made it to episode “M” at the time of its cancelation. Although NBC refused to budge from its original 13-episode order, several online petitions have spiked since then in hopes of resurrecting the show.

6 Go On

Matthew Perry in Go On
NBC

Matthew Perry has been nothing if not tenacious in the TV realm since his beloved stint on Friends.

In this new show, Perry starred as Ryan King, a grieving sportscaster who is forced into group therapy to overcome the loss of his wife. While Perry said he was initially looking for a more dramatic role at the time, he added, “... I realized that it had all of the elements that I was looking for. It was definitely funny, it had a lot of funny characters in it, and also it posed a big dramatic challenge…”

That being said, ties to Perry’s former role don’t end there. Former showrunner and executive producer of Friends Scott Silveri wrote the pilot episode of Go On and his television wife Courtney Cox even made a cameo!

This fun yet tonally-challenging series premiered during the tail end of the Olympics in 2012 and was subsequently given a full series order that October. Despite this strong omen, the series was canceled by the spring of the following year. While the premiere way able to cash in on its Olympic-level spot (with a whopping 16 million viewers), the series had consistently declined in the ratings ever since, which spelled the end for the project.

Related: Best TV Shows About Sports, Ranked

7 About a Boy

Minnie Driver in About a Boy
NBC

About a Boy was a sitcom based on the romantic dramedy film of the same name. Audiences were in for some serious whiplash when they tuned in for this series in 2014 (also during the tail end of the Olympics that year). The original, which was based on a novel by Nicholas Hornby, stars David Walton as a songwriting bachelor who strikes a deal with the new next-door neighbor to pretend to be his kid for the ladies in exchange for being allowed to hang out in his pad.

This underrated show performed well enough to be continued for a second season in 2014, but it wound up being canceled the following year. The remaining six episodes left unaired were subsequently released for streaming.

8 Outsourced

Characters from the t.v. adaptation of Outsourced
NBC/UPHE

Mumbai, oh my! When Mid-American Novelties outsources its call center to Mumbai, it's up to rookie manager Todd Dempsey to give his new coworkers a crash course on American customs to better their customer service skills. While the Midwesterner is confident in his knowledge of all things U.S. and A, he soon finds out that acclimating to India is proving equally consuming.

Based loosely on the film of the same name, Outsourced was adapted by Robert Borden for Universal Media Studios and NBC in 2010. Although nominated for a People’s Choice Award for Brand New Comedy, overall reviews for the series were mixed at best. Adding insult to injury, after it premiered that September, NBC decided to change the show’s time slot only a month later in an attempt to squeeze an extra hour out of their Thursday comedy slate.

The following May, the cast and crew started a campaign in hopes of salvaging the series when it wasn't announced for renewal alongside other shows. Unfortunately, the series was officially canceled shortly thereafter.

9 Undateable

The Cast of Undateable
NBC

Undateable gets brownie points for trying nearly everything in the book format-wise to stay on the air.

What started as a basic sitcom premise (i.e. quirky friends meet nightly at a bar to commiserate their lives) turned into a weekly live episode for the entirety of its last season (complete with musical guests). Following the success of a live, one-hour episode in Season 2, executives decided to make the next season entirely in that vein.

The main throughline of the story centered around a womanizer who helps his sister, his three friends, and his bar owner roommate with their dating lives. Based on the book Undateable: 311 Things Guys Do That Guarantee They Won't Be Dating or Having Sex, the Undateable series was created by Adam Sztykiel. The series was produced by Sztykiel, Jeff Ingold (of Ted Lasso and Scrubs), and Bill Lawrence (of Scrubs and Cougar Town). Short of coming across like a laundry list of who's who, the series also featured an all-star cast to boot—from Chris D'Elia and Brent Morin to Bianca Kajlich, David Fynn, Rick Glassman, Ron Funches, and Bridgit Mendler.

In the end, the format changes weren't enough to save the show, and NBC canceled the series after its third season.

10 Trial & Error

John Lithgow in Trial & Error
NBC

This mockumentary about all things law and disorder fell through the cracks when it came to an early close in 2018. Not to be confused with the CBS sitcom of the same name, Trial & Error starred Nicholas D'Agosto, Jayma Mays, Steven Boyer, and Sherri Shepherd in the mistrial of the century.

In it, D'Agosto led a rag-tag defense team in two different trials throughout two seasons (which are headlined by John Lithgow and Kristin Chenoweth as defendants, respectively).

This parody of the American Justice System was critically acclaimed when it came in hot in the Spring of 2017 with nearly 6 million viewers. Its niche, however, soon became the source of its downfall. After consistently losing viewership throughout the series, this masterclass in parody was as officially canceled in January 2019.

What this network's strong in-house game means for the continuation of these stories is still yet to be seen. What remains true about each one of these shows is that they each deserve another chance at the small screen. With this strong of a backing, what are the chances audiences will see these series enter the light of day (or the binge of night) once again?