Why was Blockbuster set in the present day?
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00:00 The world of TV sure is a cruel one, and in the age of streaming where shows can be cancelled
00:05 mere days after you've binged them, it feels like an especially tough landscape.
00:09 Many beloved shows are cancelled for reasons that are baffling or nebulous at best.
00:13 Where vague business red tape or behind the scenes squabbling kills them off,
00:17 but it's also fair to say that many cancelled shows got the chop for blindingly obvious reasons.
00:22 In some cases, it's all down to fundamental problems with the show's format,
00:26 presentation and storytelling, while in others it's the result of network executives simply
00:31 not giving the series a chance to find an audience. With some not impossible changes though,
00:36 things could have turned out quite differently for these promising series.
00:39 And with that in mind, I'm Adam from WhatCulture,
00:42 and here are 10 cancelled TV shows that made obvious mistakes.
00:46 Number 10, trying to outsmart the internet, Westworld.
00:50 Westworld's first season was a major hit for HBO, building a committed audience of fans who love
00:55 to obsess over basically every aspect of the show's lore. But after the intense fandom managed
01:00 to basically predict most of the first season's big reveals, creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy
01:05 went on the defensive for season 2, even rewriting aspects of the plot after fans figured things out.
01:10 Hilariously, Nolan actually asked the vocal fan community to stop guessing the plot,
01:15 and for many, Nolan and Joy's attempts to outsmart the internet signalled the show's
01:19 creative downfall, resulting in the third and fourth seasons becoming increasingly reliant on
01:24 convoluted and arguably nonsensical storytelling that fans couldn't predict. Rather than embrace
01:29 the ingenuity of the fandom and accept that the internet will always win this game,
01:33 they tried to one-up them, resulting in writing that left many fans unsatisfied.
01:38 The show's ratings had steadily declined season upon season, and the season 4 finale pulled in an
01:44 embarrassingly low 391,000 viewers, compared to 2.24 million for the first season's finale.
01:51 Given both shows' massive production budget and Warner Bros' desperate need to shed costs
01:55 amid executive reshufflings, it was a no-brainer that Westworld would get the chop. But had Nolan
02:01 and Joy stuck the storytelling course and ignored the internet, things could have gone very differently.
02:06 Number 9 - Airing Episodes Out of Order - Firefly
02:10 It certainly wasn't creator Joss Whedon's fault that his cult-fave sci-fi western series Firefly
02:15 was cancelled by Fox after just 11 of its 14 filmed episodes were aired. As was a depressingly
02:21 common occurrence in the late 90s and early 00s, Fox gave the show such little chance to succeed
02:26 that it basically amounts to sabotage. The big problem? Fox decided to air the episodes out of
02:32 order because they felt the pilot episode Serenity wasn't a satisfactory action-packed introduction
02:37 to the series, and so the second episode, The Train Job, was retooled into a second pilot,
02:42 in turn depriving audiences of the crucial onboarding and character information present
02:47 in the original pilot. The rest of the season aired episodes in a seemingly semi-random order,
02:53 creating a disjointed and occasionally nonsensical feel which, unsurprisingly,
02:57 turned many viewers off. Fox ultimately cancelled the show amid declining ratings,
03:02 but once Firefly hit DVD and people saw the episodes in the correct chronological order,
03:07 it became a word-of-mouth success. This led to Whedon getting the green light to produce a
03:12 feature film sequel, Serenity, which while well-received, failed to turn a profit at the
03:16 box office, effectively ending the series for good.
03:20 8. Forcing David Lynch to reveal the killer, Twin Peaks
03:24 David Lynch and Mark Frost's Twin Peaks was a water-cooler show like few others.
03:29 Everyone was talking about it when it premiered in 1990, desperate to know the identity of Laura
03:34 Palmer's, Sherry Lee's, murderer. But Lynch and Frost, well aware that the show's days would be
03:39 numbered once they let the cat out of the bag, actually never intended to reveal who the killer
03:43 was. However, network ABC saw things quite differently. With ratings sharply dropping
03:50 at the start of the second season, ABC executives forced the duo to reveal the killer's identity
03:55 just seven episodes into season two. And though the episode in question saw a major rating spike,
04:00 the divisive nature of the reveal only further caused the ratings to nosedive thereafter.
04:06 Lynch and Frost's involvement with the show also lessened after the killer reveal,
04:10 which may have attributed to the decline in quality through the remainder of the season.
04:14 By the end of season two, the ratings were a mere fraction of the season one premiere,
04:19 causing ABC to cancel Twin Peaks while leaving fans on an agonizing cliffhanger.
04:24 Lynch quite rightfully said that the network killed the goose that laid the golden eggs
04:28 by making them reveal Laura's killer. In something of a happy ending though,
04:32 the show was given a belated revival in 2017 with Lynch's acclaimed Twin Peaks, The Return,
04:37 which aired on Showtime.
04:39 Number seven, having no long-term roadmap, Heroes. When Heroes debuted back in 2006,
04:45 many felt that it was the next Lost, a well-crafted supernatural series focused
04:49 around a compelling mystery and fascinating cast of characters. But after a stellar first season,
04:55 it soon enough became clear that creator Tim Craig simply didn't have a mapped out direction
05:00 for the overarching story and characters. From season two onward, critics and fans alike complained
05:06 about the meandering storytelling, implausible character motivations, and generally slapdash
05:11 throw-everything-and-see-what-sticks nature of writing. In 2010, the very day that its final
05:16 episode aired, the AV Club published a fascinating interview with Craig where he effectively confirmed
05:22 that he and the show's other writers were basically making things up as they went along,
05:26 and would routinely change things on the fly if they felt like it. As such, it's little surprise
05:31 that as the scope grew, Heroes became increasingly disjointed until only the most diehard fans were
05:37 still with it. By the end of season four, the ratings were only one third of those in season
05:42 one, and so NBC decided to can it. This is a common problem with breakout word-of-mouth series,
05:48 many of which are created with an initially modest scope and quickly fall apart when the
05:52 creatives can't chart an engaging, multi-season path forward.
05:56 Number six, releasing all at once, 1899. 1899 was the new series from Dark Creators,
06:03 Shanty Freeze, and Baron Bo-Odar, and Netflix clearly banked on it becoming another word-of-mouth
06:08 hit mystery show. However, 1899 was unceremoniously cancelled just six weeks after its premiere,
06:15 with subsequent reports noting that Netflix canned the show due to its low completion rate,
06:19 whereby only a small fraction of viewers actually finished the entire series.
06:23 There were a few mistakes Netflix clearly made with distributing 1899, namely releasing it just
06:29 six days before Wednesday hit their platform and sucked all the air out of the room, and perhaps
06:34 worst of all, dropping it all at once. Though Netflix has popularised the binge model and only
06:40 deviated from it on a few special occasions, such as splitting Stranger Things fourth season in two,
06:45 1899 would have been a perfect show to experiment with a weekly release model.
06:49 Given that mystery-centric shows benefit massively from audience chatter and theory-crafting,
06:54 1899 probably would have fared better by, say, dropping two episodes per week over the course
06:59 of a month. That way discussions would have had time to grow, and it would have also been given
07:04 space away from Wednesday, rather than being basically forgotten about the moment the
07:08 Addams Family series was released. This would in no way have guaranteed that 1899 fared well enough
07:14 to get renewed, but dumping all the episodes at once with minimal marketing ahead of a far more
07:19 mainstream show was basically setting it up to fail.
07:22 Marvel's Iron Fist lasted for two seasons before Netflix cancelled it, and for many,
07:31 the reason for its failure to retain an audience was obvious - hiring showrunner Scott Buck.
07:36 Though Buck is an acclaimed, award-winning writer for his work on Six Feet Under,
07:40 Rome and Dexter, he's also largely credited with ruining Dexter after becoming the showrunner
07:45 during its maligned final three seasons. As soon as Buck was announced to be overseeing Iron Fist,
07:51 fans expressed vocal scepticism about his ability to deliver a quality end result,
07:56 and so it wasn't remotely surprising when the first season received near-universal critical scorn.
08:02 Though season two was a marked improvement, it was simply too little too late to right the sinking
08:06 ship, and amid dwindling viewing figures, Iron Fist was cancelled barely a month after its
08:12 second season was released. Basically, everyone could see the flop coming, save for Marvel
08:17 Television, who were knocked off their feet by Buck's pitch and seemingly overlooked his time
08:22 driving Dexter into the ground.
08:25 Changing its time slot, Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles
08:29 Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles was a strong ratings hit for Fox when it first
08:33 premiered in 2008, though by the end of its second season, viewership had tumbled to consistently
08:39 less than half of the first, prompting the network to cancel it. Yet anybody paying attention could
08:44 see that Terminator wasn't cancelled due to a lack of quality, it was because Fox pulled another
08:48 scheduling switcheroo which basically doomed it. Midway through season two, Fox randomly stopped
08:54 airing the show for two entire months, and when it returned, it had been moved from a prime Monday
08:59 evening slot to Friday evening, also known as the "death slot" due to the lack of viewership.
09:04 Combined with the minimal marketing for the back end of the second season, it basically signalled
09:09 that Fox had given up on the show, no matter that the series reception among both fans and
09:13 critics actually improved throughout season two. If Fox had actually given season two a fair shake,
09:18 rather than making audiences work to figure out when it was airing, it might have actually fared
09:22 well enough to stick around for a third. Sitting through Netflix's recent Resident Evil
09:31 series was like observing a slow-motion, eight-episode car crash. Everybody watching
09:35 knew that disaster was imminent, while being powerless to do anything about it.
09:39 Given the beloved survival horror IP, the TV series' treatment made total sense on paper,
09:44 as it allowed the creators to take their time adapting the games, something the movies had
09:48 struggled with amid the confines of a mere two hours. But showrunner Andrew Dabb decided instead
09:53 to splinter off and deliver a show that was effectively Resident Evil in name only. Beyond
09:58 lifting a few basic ideas and characters, the bulk of the series could have been any random
10:02 sci-fi horror show with recognisable branding slapped on it. Unsurprisingly, fans of the game
10:08 were none too pleased, resulting in it receiving a brutal 26% audience rating and being cancelled
10:14 roughly six weeks after its premiere. Sadly, Netflix and other streamers will probably take
10:18 the wrong message away from this, that there isn't an audience appetite for Resident Evil,
10:23 when all they really want after so many poor live-action adaptations is one that's source
10:28 faithful and actually good. On paper, a nostalgic sitcom centred around the halcyon days of
10:37 Blockbuster Video could have been an easy hit for Netflix, ironically the company who put them out
10:41 of business, especially with the charming Randall Park and Melissa Fumero playing the leads. The
10:46 problem? For reasons that will never truly be clear, the decision was made to set the show in
10:51 the present day, focused on the employees of the last remaining Blockbuster store. But that isn't
10:56 nearly as fun or interesting as a period sitcom set in the mid-90s, the height of Blockbuster's
11:01 power, which could have easily exploited the growing audience nostalgia for that era. It was
11:06 a slam dunk idea, because there are few things more bankable in media than nostalgia, and yet
11:11 by setting it in the present, Blockbuster ended up feeling like nothing more than a tired fourth
11:16 rate superstore knockoff. Barely a month after its release, Netflix announced Blockbuster's
11:20 cancellation, confirming that audiences had soundly rejected it, and letting everybody
11:25 joke that Netflix killed Blockbuster again. Thriller series Bloodline was a significant
11:33 critical and ratings hit for Netflix in 2015, in large part due to Ben Mendelsohn's phenomenal
11:39 performances as Danny Rayburn, the enigmatic black sheep of the Rayburn family. But in the
11:43 first season's penultimate episode, Danny is killed by his brother John, Kyle Chandler,
11:48 a shocking moment, albeit one in which robbed the series of its most compelling character and
11:53 performance. Though Mendelsohn did reappear as Danny in flashbacks and visions throughout season
11:59 two, his physical absence in the ongoing story was brutal, and simply put, the show just wasn't
12:04 nearly as interesting without his direct involvement. By the end of season two, it felt
12:09 like the show was spinning its dramatic wheels, no matter that the creators had mapped out a five
12:14 to six season arc for the Rayburns. Evidently, the viewing figures declined enough that Netflix
12:19 announced season three to be the show's last, and to make matters worse, it ended the initially
12:24 fantastic drama on a majorly disappointing note. Danny dying might have worked at the end of
12:29 season two or three, once we'd been given more time to warm to the show's other characters,
12:34 but taking the MVP character off the chessboard so soon was a fatal mistake.
12:39 And as always, please do let us know in the comments section which are your favourite TV
12:44 shows that were cancelled far too early. As a long time Buffy fan, I still think that Angel
12:49 deserved a season six, as much as I loved season five, it still deserved an extra season, right?
12:54 If you want to follow me on socials, I am @Strawn87 on Twitter and on Instagram,
12:59 come and say hello to me on there. Thank you for watching everybody,
13:02 I hope you enjoy the rest of your day, and until next time, take care.
13:05 [BLANK_AUDIO]