TV Shows that didn't hang around long enough (aka Brilliant but Cancelled)

I loved journeyman

 

parker lewis can't lose
titus

 

as far as I know it wasn't canceled

 

Has anyone said "John from Cincinnati"? That was my move! I only know two people that watched it. I think the same writers as deadwood (because the characters won't shut up)

 

Good show. I have most of them.

 

We just finished a run through the 13 episodes. Back when it aired on NBC, there were two shows on at the same time that we liked. I think it was CSI: MIAMI on CBS and JOURNEYMAN on NBC. At the time I had a DVD recorder with a hard drive and was only able to record in SD, but I managed to get all 13 episodes and have transferred what we have to DVD. I'm toying with the idea of importing a DVD set from the UK and trying to re-author them for use in region 1. Mine, being SD are really a letterbox image inside a 4:3 frame, so it's either a postage stamp screen or a zoomed in picture.

My fears about a region 2 set is that they might have the dreaded PAL speed-up.

 

Roadies!! Both wife and I loved it. Cameron Crowe was quite pragmatic about the cancellation saying (paraphrase) - we had a story to tell, we told it, and I think we told it well. Or words to that effect....

Also, I really, really, liked Better Off Ted

 

You got that right. Excellent cast as well. Harvey Keitel? Gretchen Mol? Michael Imperioli at his sleaziest best? To call the ending rushed is being kind~

 

Pleased to see most of the shows I liked have been mentioned.
Firefly, Freaks & Geeks, and My So-Called Life are some of the best examples of shows that were surpringly good early on but never got to reach their greatest potential.
Three others - Max Headroom, Wonderfalls, and Cupid - I had a very personal attachment to. In their time(s), I don't know if any of these could have transcended their quirkiness enough to survive, but similar series have succeeded in the cable-streaming world we currently live in.

Here are some others I thought of:

(MTV's) Downtown - After the success of Daria, MTV tried out this interesting take on young people living in New York City. I really liked the style and characters of this show which disappeared from the network in less than four months.

Love Monkey - Tom Cavanagh, a fun supporting cast, and cameos by real musicians were the highlights of this CBS show. The show wasn't terrible, but I think its earnestness and music industry setting didn't do much for audiences.

It's Like... You Know - This is another show that probably died because it was never going to transcend its quirkiness. This felt like an attempt to make an LA equivalent to Seinfeld, but there was an outsider character providing a loosely serialed storyline and a counterpoint to the weirdness. I was a huge fan of this show's casting of Jennifer Grey as her post-nose job self, including an appearance by Joel Grey failing to recognize his own daughter.

Don't Trust The B in Apartment 23 - I could say a lot of the same things about this show that I said about 'It's Like... You Know,' down to its casting of James Van Der Beek as himself. The humor was a little more surreal and heightened, and Krysten Ritter was fantastic in this. The same showrunner finally had a hit with 'Fresh Off The Boat.'

The Middleman - A comic book adaptation with a dash of Joss Whedon and a dash of 'The Tick.' I was thoroughly charmed by the series' lead, Natalie Morales.

Clerks - Considering the more recent trajectory of Kevin Smith's film career, I doubt if many people truly miss the short-lived animated adaptation of his first film. The show occasionally crossed the boundary of good taste, but to actively contrast its source material, the writers embraced the ability to do just about anything. One of the most inspired bits was to change styles abruptly because the show had to be finished by the Korean animators, leading to the classic line, "Who is driving? Oh my God, bear is driving! How can that be?"

 

Titus

This edgy comedy starred Christopher Titus and also featured Stacey Keach as his father and Cynthia Watros as his girlfriend, Erin.

 

several years ago he tried to bring it back and had some issues with fox so he dropped the idea

 

I tried to like it as I liked the two leads but their were far too many modern pop culture references to people and things that I have no knowledge of.

 

Another good choice, IMHO. Although I thought the neighbour out the window was a terrible character that just dragged the show down, I enjoyed the rest of it. Both lead women and James Van Der Beek were good.

 

First of all, shout out to Matthew Tate, as think he listd 'Titus' first, but I have not read all of the Pages in this Thread yet.
Funniest Sitcom Ever-IMO
But I Love Dark Comedy, and this show was very Dark Comedy especially when I found out that his Show was based somewhat on his own Family and his Mother was Full On 50 Shades of Cray-Cray. The Thanksgiving Episode was a classic. One of the Few Comedies that I bought the DVD Seasons to Rewatch any time(although still have not watched them again yet). Stacey Keach was brilliant as the Father with Great Comic Timing. I was surprised that I did not find Christopher Titus' Stand Up Comedy Specials, as funny as his Sitcom he created, but this show is high recommended, if you like your Comedy Dark & Bleak.

 

Hannibal-One of my Top 4 TV Dramas Ever. It was too bad that this Show was on NBC, as Major Networks will pull a show due to Low Ratings no matter how good of quality the show is with Writing, Acting, Directing, Cinematography, etc. this show should have been on FX or AMC from the beginning(or maybe a Streaming Service), as think it would have been given the chance to run the 7 Seasons that Showrunner, Bryan Fuller had planned. He was going to get to the 'Silence of the Lambs' chapter by the 4th or 5th Seasons, although was running into problems getting rights to use the characters(not sure why he did not have a problem with getting rights to characters from 'Red Dragon' in the 3rd Season), but he had a workaround option planned for his part of the story for 'Silence of the Lambs' by changing the name of the characters-IIRC.

Anyways, the 3rd Season ended in a way that would make it hard to resume the show, if Fuller can get another Network or Streaming Service to pick it up in the future, but he should be creative enough to figure out a way to fix that issue. The problem though might be getting the main actors, who played Will Graham(Hugh Dancy), Hannibal Lecter(Mads Mikkelsen), Jack Crawford(Laurence Fishburne), Alana Bloom(Caroline Dhavernas) and Bedelia du Maurier(Gillian Anderson) all free at the same time to resume their roles, if the opportunity becomes available.

 

Two other Really Good Shows-IMO, that got cut short(surprisingly to me by FX) were 'Tyrant' and 'The Bridge' from the past 3-4 years. FX used to be great at letting their TV Shows grow an audience, but that started to change when 'Damages'(another great show), was not picked up after the 3rd Season, but at least 'Damages' got a chance to finish it's last 2 Seasons elsewhere(Direct TV?). At least FX let 'The Strain' finish it's story, but maybe because it was only a 3 year commitment. Not a Great Show, but a fun Popcorn Show, and those Vampires were much scarier than Walkers on TWD & FTWD-IMO. Let's see how long 'Snowfall' on FX will last with the 2nd Season to start this Summer. The first Season was pretty good.

 

Definitely agree here. ABC didn't help things at all by randomly airing held-over season one episodes in the middle of season two and messing up the continuity. This was definitely a show I would like to have seen revived on Netflix or Hulu.

 

re: Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23

That's what turned me off of the show. IIRC that character's shtick was that he was masturbating while chatting with the main characters.

 

Jessica Jones was kind of a B.

 

Although based on Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I loved the first season of Parker Lewis Can't Lose.

 

It seemed as if the moment his father died, the writing went downhill fast.
Wife and I loved this, as we had alcoholics in our families. My father was so much like Keach's character, it was scary and not funny.
The woman who played Titus's gf was an impressive lady.

 

Southland was about the cops lives, a unique spin and I liked it too
Rubicon was one of the best shows ever imo

 

Another great show that disappeared after only one brief season was MOONLIGHT. Not the movie, this was a TV show with Alex O'Laughlin as a vampire/private detective in Los Angeles. It turned a lot of traditional vampire myths on their side. Sophia Myles was the female lead, a reporter for an online magazine called BuzzFeed.

 

OMG someone else remembers and loves Thief!! I just transfered all my vhs episode copies to DVD last month. Love Mr Braugher and this show.

 

Yes Yes YES!! easily one of the great shows that ended too soon. With everything FX has produced over the years, why was this ended so soon. this show is awesome!