10 Cancelled TV Shows That Made Obvious Mistakes
Why was Blockbuster set in the present day?
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00:00The world of TV sure is a cruel one, and in the age of streaming where shows can be cancelled
00:05mere days after you've binged them, it feels like an especially tough landscape.
00:09Many beloved shows are cancelled for reasons that are baffling or nebulous at best.
00:13Where vague business red tape or behind the scenes squabbling kills them off,
00:17but it's also fair to say that many cancelled shows got the chop for blindingly obvious reasons.
00:22In some cases, it's all down to fundamental problems with the show's format, presentation
00:27and storytelling, while in others it's the result of network executives simply
00:31not giving the series a chance to find an audience.
00:34With some not impossible changes though,
00:36things could have turned out quite differently for these promising series.
00:39And with that in mind, I'm Adam from WhatCulture,
00:42and here are 10 Cancelled TV Shows That Made Obvious Mistakes.
00:47Trying to outsmart the internet, Westworld.
00:50Westworld's first season was a major hit for HBO, building a committed audience of
00:54fans who loved to obsess over basically every aspect of the show's lore.
00:58But after the intense fandom managed to basically predict most of the first season's big reveals,
01:02creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy went on the defensive for season 2,
01:07even rewriting aspects of the plot after fans figured things out.
01:10Hilariously, Nolan actually asked the vocal fan community to stop guessing the plot.
01:15And for many, Nolan and Joy's attempts to outsmart the
01:18internet signalled the show's creative downfall,
01:20resulting in the third and fourth seasons becoming increasingly reliant on convoluted
01:25and arguably nonsensical storytelling that fans couldn't predict.
01:28Rather than embrace the ingenuity of the fandom and accept that the
01:31internet will always win this game, they tried to one-up them,
01:35resulting in writing that left many fans unsatisfied.
01:38The show's ratings had steadily declined season upon season,
01:42and the season 4 finale pulled in an embarrassingly low 391,000 viewers,
01:47compared to 2.24 million for the first season's finale.
01:51Given both shows' massive production budget and Warner Bros' desperate need to shed costs
01:56amid executive reshufflings, it was a no-brainer that Westworld would get the chop.
02:00But had Nolan and Joy stuck the storytelling course and ignored the internet,
02:04things could have gone very differently.
02:06Number 9. Airing Episodes Out Of Order – Firefly
02:10It certainly wasn't creator Joss Whedon's fault that his cult-fave sci-fi western series
02:15Firefly was cancelled by Fox after just 11 of its 14 filmed episodes were aired.
02:20As was a depressingly common occurrence in the late 90s and early noughts,
02:24Fox gave the show such little chance to succeed that it basically amounts to sabotage.
02:28The big problem? Fox decided to air the episodes out of order,
02:32because they felt the pilot episode Serenity wasn't a satisfactory,
02:36action-packed introduction to the series.
02:38And so the second episode, The Train Job, was retooled into a second pilot,
02:42in turn depriving audiences of the crucial onboarding
02:45and character information present in the original pilot.
02:49The rest of the season aired episodes in a seemingly semi-random order,
02:53creating a disjointed and occasionally nonsensical feel which,
02:56unsurprisingly, turned many viewers off.
02:59Fox ultimately cancelled the show amid declining ratings,
03:02but once Firefly hit DVD and people saw the episodes in the correct chronological order,
03:07it became a word-of-mouth success.
03:09This led to Whedon getting the green light to produce a feature film sequel,
03:13Serenity, which, while well-received,
03:15failed to turn a profit at the box office, effectively ending the series for good.
03:24David Lynch and Mark Frost's Twin Peaks was a water-cooler show like few others.
03:29Everyone was talking about it when it premiered in 1990,
03:32desperate to know the identity of Laura Palmer's, Sherry Lee's, murderer.
03:36But Lynch and Frost, well aware that the show's days would be numbered
03:39once they let the cat out of the bag,
03:41actually never intended to reveal who the killer was.
03:44However, network ABC saw things quite differently.
03:48With ratings sharply dropping at the start of the second season,
03:51ABC executives forced the duo to reveal the killer's identity
03:55just seven episodes into season two.
03:57And though the episode in question saw a major ratings spike,
04:00the divisive nature of the reveal only further caused the ratings to nosedive thereafter.
04:06Lynch and Frost's involvement with the show also lessened after the killer reveal,
04:10which may have attributed to the decline in quality through the remainder of the season.
04:14By the end of season two, the ratings were a mere fraction of the season one premiere,
04:19causing ABC to cancel Twin Peaks while leaving fans on an agonising cliffhanger.
04:24Lynch quite rightfully said that the network
04:26killed the goose that laid the golden eggs by making them reveal Laura's killer.
04:30In something of a happy ending though,
04:32the show was given a belated revival in 2017,
04:35with Lynch's acclaimed Twin Peaks The Return, which aired on Showtime.
04:40Having no long-term roadmap, Heroes.
04:42When Heroes debuted back in 2006, many felt that it was the next Lost,
04:47a well-crafted supernatural series focused around a compelling mystery
04:51and fascinating cast of characters.
04:53But after a stellar first season, it soon enough became clear that creator Tim Kring
04:58didn't have a mapped out direction for the overarching story and characters.
05:03From season two onward, critics and fans alike complained about the meandering storytelling,
05:08implausible character motivations,
05:10and generally slapdash throw-everything-and-see-what-sticks nature of writing.
05:14In 2010, the very day that its final episode aired,
05:17the AV Club published a fascinating interview with Kring,
05:20where he effectively confirmed that he and the show's other writers
05:24were basically making things up as they went along,
05:26and would routinely change things on the fly if they felt like it.
05:30As such, it's little surprise that as the scope grew,
05:33Heroes became increasingly disjointed, until only the most diehard fans were still with it.
05:38By the end of season four, the ratings were only one third of those in season one,
05:43and so NBC decided to can it.
05:45This is a common problem with breakout word-of-mouth series,
05:48many of which are created with an initially modest scope,
05:51and quickly fall apart when the creatives can't chart an engaging, multi-season path forward.
05:57Releasing all at once, 1899.
06:001899 was the new series from Dark Creators, Shanty Freeze, and Baron Bo Odar,
06:05and Netflix clearly banked on it becoming another word-of-mouth hit mystery show.
06:09However, 1899 was unceremoniously cancelled just six weeks after its premiere,
06:15with subsequent reports noting that Netflix canned the show due to its low completion rate,
06:19whereby only a small fraction of viewers actually finished the entire series.
06:23There were a few mistakes Netflix clearly made with distributing 1899,
06:28namely releasing it just six days before Wednesday hit their platform
06:32and sucked all the air out of the room, and perhaps worst of all, dropping it all at once.
06:37Though Netflix has popularised the binge model and only deviated from it on a few special occasions,
06:42such as splitting Stranger Things fourth season in two,
06:451899 would have been a perfect show to experiment with a weekly release model.
06:49Given that mystery-centric shows benefit massively from audience chatter and theory-crafting,
06:541899 probably would have fared better by, say, dropping two episodes per week over the course
06:59of a month. That way discussions would have had time to grow, and it would have also been given
07:04space away from Wednesday, rather than being basically forgotten about the moment that
07:08the Addams Family series was released. This would in no way have guaranteed that 1899
07:13fared well enough to get renewed, but dumping all the episodes at once with minimal marketing
07:18ahead of a far more mainstream show was basically setting it up to fail.
07:23Hiring Scott Buck as showrunner, Iron Fist
07:26Marvel's Iron Fist lasted for two seasons before Netflix cancelled it,
07:30and for many the reason for its failure to retain an audience was obvious, hiring showrunner Scott
07:35Buck. Though Buck is an acclaimed, award-winning writer for his work on Six Feet Under, Rome and
07:40Dexter, he's also largely credited with ruining Dexter after becoming the showrunner during its
07:46maligned final three seasons. As soon as Buck was announced to be overseeing Iron Fist, fans
07:51expressed vocal scepticism about his ability to deliver a quality end result, and so it wasn't
07:57remotely surprising when the first season received near-universal critical scorn.
08:02Though season two was a marked improvement, it was simply too little too late to right the
08:06sinking ship, and amid dwindling viewing figures, Iron Fist was cancelled barely a month after its
08:12second season was released. Basically, everyone could see the flop coming, save for Marvel
08:17Television, who were knocked off their feet by Buck's pitch and seemingly overlooked his time
08:22driving Dexter into the ground.
08:25Changing its time slot, Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles
08:29Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles was a strong ratings hit for Fox when it first
08:33premiered in 2008, though by the end of its second season, viewership had tumbled to consistently
08:39less than half of the first, prompting the network to cancel it. Yet anybody paying attention could
08:44see that Terminator wasn't cancelled due to a lack of quality, it was because Fox pulled
08:48another scheduling switcheroo which basically doomed it. Midway through season two, Fox
08:53randomly stopped airing the show for two entire months, and when it returned, it had been moved
08:58from a prime Monday evening slot to Friday evening, also known as the death slot due to the
09:03lack of viewership. Combined with the minimal marketing for the back end of the second season,
09:07it basically signalled that Fox had given up on the show, no matter that the series reception
09:12among both fans and critics actually improved throughout season two. If Fox had actually given
09:17season two a fair shake, rather than making audiences work to figure out when it was airing,
09:21it might have actually fared well enough to stick around for a third.
09:25Deviating from the source material, Resident Evil
09:28Sitting through Netflix's recent Resident Evil series was like observing a slow-motion,
09:33eight-episode car crash. Everybody watching knew that disaster was imminent, while being powerless
09:38to do anything about it. Given the beloved survival horror IP, the TV series' treatment
09:42made total sense on paper, as it allowed the creators to take their time adapting the games,
09:47something the movies had struggled with amid the confines of a mere two hours.
09:51But showrunner Andrew Dabb decided instead to splinter off and deliver a show that was
09:55effectively Resident Evil in name only. Beyond lifting a few basic ideas and characters,
10:00the bulk of the series could have been any random sci-fi horror show with recognisable
10:04branding slapped on it. Unsurprisingly, fans of the game were none too pleased,
10:09resulting in it receiving a brutal 26% audience rating and being cancelled roughly six weeks
10:15after its premiere. Sadly, Netflix and other streamers will probably take the wrong message
10:19away from this, that there isn't an audience appetite for Resident Evil, when all they
10:23really want after so many poor live-action adaptations is one that's source-faithful
10:28and actually good.
10:30Number 2, Being Set in the Present Day, Blockbuster
10:33On paper, a nostalgic sitcom centred around the halcyon days of blockbuster video could
10:38have been an easy hit for Netflix, ironically the company who put them out of business,
10:42especially with the charming Randall Park and Melissa Fumero playing the leads.
10:46The problem? For reasons that will never truly be clear, the decision was made to set the show
10:51in the present day, focused on the employees of the last remaining blockbuster store.
10:55But that isn't nearly as fun or interesting as a period sitcom set in the mid-90s,
11:00the height of Blockbuster's power, which could have easily exploited the growing audience
11:04nostalgia for that era. It was a slam-dunk idea, because there are a few things more
11:09bankable in media than nostalgia, and yet by setting it in the present, Blockbuster ended
11:13up feeling like nothing more than a tired fourth-rate superstore knock-off.
11:17Barely a month after its release, Netflix announced Blockbuster's cancellation,
11:21confirming that audiences had soundly rejected it, and letting everybody
11:25joke that Netflix killed Blockbuster again.
11:31Thriller series Bloodline was a significant critical and ratings hit for Netflix in 2015,
11:36in large part due to Ben Mendelsohn's phenomenal performance as Danny Rayburn,
11:40the enigmatic black sheep of the Rayburn family. But in the first season's penultimate episode,
11:45Danny is killed by his brother John, Kyle Chandler, a shocking moment,
11:50albeit one in which robbed the series of its most compelling character and performance.
11:54Though Mendelsohn did reappear as Danny in flashbacks and visions throughout season 2,
11:59his physical absence in the ongoing story was brutal, and simply put, the show just wasn't
12:04nearly as interesting without his direct involvement. By the end of season 2, it felt
12:10like the show was spinning its dramatic wheels, no matter that the creators had mapped out a
12:145-6 season arc for the Rayburns. Evidently, the viewing figures declined enough that Netflix
12:19announced season 3 to be the show's last, and to make matters worse, it ended the initially
12:24fantastic drama on a majorly disappointing note. Danny dying might have worked at the end of season
12:302 or 3, once we'd been given more time to warm to the show's other characters, but taking the
12:35MVP character off the chessboard so soon was a fatal mistake. And as always, please do let us
12:41know in the comments section which are your favourite TV shows that were cancelled far too
12:45early. As a longtime Buffy fan, I still think that Angel deserved a season 6, as much as I
12:51loved season 5, it still deserved an extra season, right? If you want to follow me on socials,
12:56I am at Strawn87 on Twitter and on Instagram, come and say hello to me on there. Thank you
13:01for watching everybody, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day, and until next time, take care.