The Top Five Shows That Should Have Never Been Pulled Off the Air
Published June 22, 2007
In the world of television, there lie several shows that died too young, pulled off the air before it was their time to go. It’s a truth that – for many of us – is hard to swallow, particularly when the likes of Jerry Springer and The Simple Life plague the airwaves. Yet, this is part of life: television shows come and go and some networks change programs as quickly as some people change channels.
Still, within the cancellations sit a brotherhood of coveted series, series whose stoppage caused us all to fight with our televisions, pushing its buttons and pulling its plug. The following is our list of top five shows that deserved a chance — and a contract renewal.
Arrested Development: Nevernudes. Annyong. Romance between adolescent cousins. A grown man on a Segway. Why this show was canceled, the world will never know. Arrested Development, airing on Fox between late 2003 and early 2006, is, remotes down, one of the best shows to ever hit a television screen. A plot that centered on Michael Bluth (played by Jason Bateman) as the only sane member of a highly dysfunctional family, Arrested Development had it all: comedy, originality, comedy, heart, and comedy. When its development was arrested, fans everywhere were disheartened. This show will go down in history as one of the worst cancellations ever.
Freaks and Geeks: A show that made it okay to feel like an outcast, Freaks and Geeks ran on NBC from 1999 to 2000. A well-scripted, well-acted show pulled after only a handful of episodes, NBC was quickly labeled the “freak” by upset fans. The series featured the Weir siblings, Lindsay and Sam (played by Linda Cardellini and John Francis Daley), and the trials and tribulations they faced at McKinley High School in 1980 Michigan. With several of the characters falling into the “freaks” category and the rest labeled as “geeks,” Freaks and Geeks was well-named and well-received, at least critically. Though it was canceled before given a fair chance, it remains one of the biggest cult shows of all time.
Once and Again: Once and Again may have been the best cast show in modern television history; each character seemed tailor-made for the actor who played it. A show that told the tale of a single mother (played by Sela Ward) and her romance with a single father (played by Billy Campbell), this series realistically portrayed the struggles of blended families, especially when those families involve teenagers. It touched on important issues, without shoving lessons down viewers’ throats in an After School Special-like fashion. The show was also highly engaging and well-written, with dialogue that bordered on poetic and heart-swelling. Running on ABC from 1999 to 2002, Once and Again was a show that many could have watched again and again.
- The Top Five Shows That Should Have Never Been Pulled Off the Air
- Published: June 22, 2007
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Video: Cult, Video: Comedy, Video: Drama, Video: Television
- Writer: JM Jordan
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My Top 5 would be The Job, Get a Life, Undeclared, Freaks and Geeks and Police Squad.
I loved Arrested Devepment. Such originality and such humor. I was bummed when they took it off the air. Who else would have thought of putting the father in the attic of the house they are all living in and why didn't the cops look there to begin with. It was just that type of crazy humor that i liked.
Thank you for giving Once and Again it's proper respect. It remains a classic and the cast was amazing.
The cancellation of that show put me off network tv for a couple of years.
Studio 60. Depressing that it's gone.
Is anyone watching "John From Cincinnati" at all?
Love Monkey: It was a smart, funny show (based on a smart, funny book) that people just didn't catch on with. For a music junkie like me though (since that was a major theme of the show), it was great.
Farscape
Firefly
Titus
Arrested Development
The Job (but then we may not have gotten Rescue Me)
Enterprise (after the phenomenal last season should have gotten 1 more)
Nowhere Man
Lone Gunmen
Millenium
Angel
Studio 60
Drive
In answer to Peter's question "Is anyone watching "John From Cincinnati" at all?": Yes, I am. I'm fascinated with it.
Dead Like Me - don't ask me what I had in common with a mopey, newly-dead 17 year old girl, but I identified with George like no other TV character in recent memory. Alternately funny, quirky, and strangely touching. Also featured Mandy Patinkin in a role he was born to play.
Millenium - wow, forgot about that one... Great show.
"EZ Streets" - morally ambiguous, intense, with flashes of humor, and wonderfully acted. Never even finished the first season. Paul Haggis went on to the big screen, including the Oscar-winning "Crash".
"Murder One" - the first season followed one story - a high profile murder trial - from the discovery of the body to the final disposition of the case. The second season did some major recasting, and split the focus among three different cases. Another well-written, brilliantly acted series, and the 'gimmick' of the first season may have influenced the more commercially successful "24".
"Joan of Arcadia" - I agree with many fans that the second season wasn't as good as the first, but most of us were looking forward to a third season anyway - I was hooked on the characters, and enchanted by the heroine's struggles at home, at school, and in relation to a complex and mystifying world.
"WKRP in Cinncinnati" - It was very funny, it was perfectly cast, and there were still plenty of stories they could have told.
You're all wrong about Arrested Development. They should have canceled the damned thing a year sooner than they did. It started out promising in the first season, but the quality of it devolved. Even knowing that they were on the way out, the best thing they could conjure up for their final shows was crap like William Hung and the Hung Jury band. That's not clever and postmodern, it's merely stupid.
Um, Married With Children, anyone? That was one of the funniest shows of all time! And it just suddenly got canceled - someone one the street had to tell Ed O'Brien (Al Bundy) the bad news; that's how sudden it was.
And Beavis & Butthead, great as it was, didn't really last that long. I'm not sure how long it was on the air, but by the late '90s, I don't remember it being on the air. Too bad, because it really made MTV worth watching, especially for the artists (obscure and known) whose videos they showed on every show.
Get A Life was funny, sometimes, but it was so odd that it could be painful. Arrested Development was terrible - a waste of a lot of funny people (and some dead weight like Bateman). The interesting thing was how devout its followers were/are. I only vaguely remember Freaks and Geeks.
Lists like this one always require some shaky assumptions. I would have loved to see another season of Joan of Arcadia, if it were as good as season one. But there's no reason to think that it would have been. The show was running out of ideas halfway through season two.
I notice that people are mentioning shows that had eight or so episodes. Like Titus. Titus had enough material for one good episode. If you saw one episode, it was great, but every episode was the same.
"My So-Called Life," in my opinion, is the best show ever made. It was very groundbreaking and far ahead of its time. It's not just a show for teenagers, either. I have all the DVDs and watch them constantly.
I'd include Mister Sterling in that list.
Arrested Development was brilliant!! The problem it had was it was too smart for the average viewer. Most comedy's have laugh tracks to tell you when to laugh, AD didn't. People nowadays are trained when to laugh they can't think for themselves. AD,which I think was one of the best shows ever and I still watch all the time wheher it's on DVD,CBC or G4, was to brilliant and funny for it's own good. With all the dribble on tv now it's a crying shame AD is off the air
Married With Children was a great show. While I don't think it shouldn't have been pulled off the air, because it was on for a long time and it was past its prime, it should have been given its due and had a series finale. Married with Children put Fox on the map, you'd think they'd at least give it a proper send off.
I agree on Titus. It was hilarious every week.
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No question whatsoever on Arrested Development, a show that never picked up enough viewers -- but should have. The DVD sales prove that the audience was there, just apparently not when Fox wanted them to be there (poor scheduling).