The Best One-Season TV Shows That Died Way Too Soon
Television is great for telling serialized stories over time, but not every TV series is meant to last. None of the shows on this list made it past a single season — and we still aren't over it.
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00:00Television is great for telling serialized stories over time, but not every TV series
00:06is meant to last. None of the shows on this list made it past a single season, and we
00:11still aren't over it.
00:13Pulling from their own awkward high school experiences as newcomers and outsiders in
00:17small communities, David Guaracio and Moses Port recalled the genesis of their show, Aliens
00:23in America, in an interview with Patheos, saying,
00:25We started talking about politics and the giant gap that exists between Americans and
00:30really the rest of the world, specifically the Muslim world.
00:33Airing on The CW between 2007 and 2008, Aliens in America focuses on social misfit Justin
00:39Tolchak and his wholesome yet quirky Wisconsin family. They take in a foreign exchange student
00:44from Pakistan for a culture clash comedy about peace, love, and understanding, as the show's
00:49theme song goes.
00:50Oh, well, why don't you wear a warmer jacket over that boy blouse of yours?
00:54When Scott Patterson, who played Patriarch Gary Tolchak, sat down with IGN in 2008, he
00:59was full of praise for Aliens in America's humor and its message, calling it relevant
01:04for the times, and saying,
01:05The beauty of the show is that it shows there's ignorance on both sides.
01:10Critics were fond of it, too, even when the ratings didn't back it up. The Boston Herald
01:14wrote that,
01:15Aliens in America is warm, funny, and smart. It doesn't stand a chance.
01:20That prediction proved true. Two years later, Variety was still lamenting the show's cancellation.
01:26With the success of Star Wars came imitators hot on its heels, hoping to turn their own
01:31space dust into magic. In 1978, producer Glen A. Larson tried to launch his own space opera,
01:37Battlestar Galactica. In an interview with Science & Fantasy Film Classics magazine,
01:42Larson described his approach to the show.
01:46It's basically the concept of all the human cultures in space having evolved from a mother
01:51planet culture. We've got a truly rare opportunity to really open up that frontier and talk about
01:57what could happen out there in space. It doesn't have to be all robots and flying machines.
02:10The series takes place at the end of a long conflict between humans and Asylums. Robots
02:14created by an extinct reptilian race. Humanity rallies behind the Galactica, a Battlestar
02:20warship led by Commander Adama, played by Lorne Green.
02:23Ready? Fire.
02:27Things got off to a bumpy start for the show when the premiere was interrupted by President
02:32Jimmy Carter's announcement of the Camp David Accords. The good fight for humanity raged
02:37on, but competition from other networks and constant comparisons to Star Wars did the
02:42show no favors. Ron Cowan from the Statesman Journal wrote of Battlestar Galactica at the
02:47time,
02:48The opening was impressive, but the show became more a soap opera than a space opera. The
02:53writing was on the wall. Battlestar Galactica was taken out of orbit the following season.
02:58Many prefer the highly acclaimed 2004 reboot, but plenty of viewers still have a soft spot
03:03for the original series.
03:06Out of all the zany characters Martin Short has brought to life, few have utilized his
03:10talents better than buttoned-up, triangle-haired, happy-go-lucky Ed Grimley. Short debuted the
03:16character at The Second City, and Grimley was further developed on SCTV and Saturday
03:21Night Live. But Short wasn't interested in playing Grimley on the big screen. Instead,
03:26he took Hanna-Barbera up on an offer to create a Saturday morning cartoon, The Completely
03:30Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley. The move made sense because, as he told New York's
03:35The Post star, it's a real-life person acting like an animated character. They modeled the
03:41cartoon after the adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle in Friends, making it something
03:45both kids and parents could enjoy. Short went tall on talent, bringing Catherine O'Hara,
03:51Andrea Martin, and Jonathan Winters on board to amp the absurdity.
03:55The following season, Grimley got the axe, replaced by fellow SCTV alum John Candy's
04:00animated show Camp Candy. Short bemoaned the decision in an interview with the Tampa Tribune
04:05saying,
04:06"...it had reviews like we wrote them ourselves, and NBC couldn't take that show off fast
04:12enough. They thought it was too odd. If I had done Ed Grimley, Boy Scout leader, it
04:16would be on today."
04:17MC Search, aka Michael Barron, knows a thing or two about what it takes to be respected
04:23as a white rapper. In 2007, the former 3rd Base member hosted Ego Trips, the white rapper
04:28show on VH1.
04:29According to an interview Search gave to the
04:37Virginian pilot, the competition series mixed elements of Survivor, hip-hop, Jeopardy!,
04:42racial tension, political views, and Seinfeld into one.
04:46Ten hopeful rappers with stage names like Shamrock, Just Rhyme, Persia, G-Child, and
04:53100 Proof lived in the Bronx and battled for $100,000. They got to work with hip-hop royalty
04:59like Curtis Blow, Prince Paul, Cool Keith, Grandmaster Flash, and House of Pain members
05:05Danny Boy O'Connor and Eric Francis Schroeder, aka Everlast.
05:09One contestant, John Boy, told the Virginian pilot,
05:12"...I felt like the show was rap boot camp. It was really humbling, trying to educate
05:16us on where hip-hop came from."
05:19Search was hopeful that a second season would get greenlit, but it never materialized.
05:24Comedy duo Ricky Lindholm and Kate Micucci are better known to fans as Garfunkel and
05:29Oates. They're sometimes referred to as the female Flight of the Conchords, which they
05:33don't mind.
05:34In an interview with the Tampa Bay Times, Lindholm admitted,
05:37"...we describe ourselves as that because it's an easy way to let people know what we
05:41do."
05:42Their naughty, sharp-tongued brand of musical humor led HBO to develop a pilot with them,
05:47but it never took flight. Instead, they landed at IFC with a self-titled show directed and
05:52executive produced by Fred Savage.
05:59Playing exaggerated versions of themselves, Lindholm and Micucci set about trying to make
06:03it big in Hollywood. The duo had to tone down their act to comply with the TV-14 rate. Micucci
06:09told Under the Radar,
06:10"...because of the show's TV-14, a lot of our dirtier material we were not able to use."
06:15Instead, they poked fun at everything from Sesame Street and Saved by the Bell to sports
06:21fans and, of course, themselves. Joining in on the fun were the likes of Tig Notaro,
06:26Kevin Pollak, Weird Al Yankovic, Kumail Nanjiani, Ben Kingsley, and even rocker Jon Oates, who
06:32told Entertainment Weekly,
06:33"...I thought they were really clever and funny."
06:35So did critics. The show dropped to rave reviews in 2014. News of the show's cancellation after
06:41a single season didn't go down well. As one AV Club headline put it,
06:46The UFC stops being cool, cancels Garfunkel and Oates.
06:51It's hard to fathom that The Honeymooners, one of the most iconic sitcoms of all time,
06:55lasted just a single season. The show that CBS first beamed onto black-and-white TV sets
07:01in 1955 set the standard for television comedy for decades, influencing everything from The
07:07Flintstones to King of Queens. The show originated as a sketch on Jackie Gleason's variety show
07:12Cavalcade of Stars in 1951. The domestic antics of Gleason's bus driver character Ralph
07:18Cramden followed Gleason to The Jackie Gleason Show, and would eventually become the basis
07:22for a half-hour comedy.
07:23"'I don't know anybody who does the mambo. I don't do it. Norton doesn't do it. My grandmother
07:29never did it!"
07:31Although The Honeymooners trailed The Perry Como Show in the ratings, CBS was hungry for
07:35more. Alas, Gleason turned them down. The star is quoted in William J. Weatherby's Jackie
07:40Gleason, An Intimate Portrait of the Great One, as saying,
07:44"'They wouldn't believe me when I said we couldn't come up with the same high quality
07:47of scripts for a second year.'"
07:49"'Ralph, how could you do such a thing?'
07:53"'I'ma, I'ma, I'ma, I'ma, I'ma, I'ma, I'ma.'"
07:56Gleason explained that he, quote, "'wanted to go out on top.'"
08:00The Honeymooners characters would live on in specials and variety shows, but nothing
08:04would compare to those 39 episodes. Gleason was nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal
08:10of Ralph Cramden in the show. Did he ever regret not making more? Co-star Art Carney
08:14confided to the Coruscant Daily Sun,
08:16"'I think Gleason wishes he made 139 of them.'"
08:21One of the best kids' game shows ever made has been mostly forgotten to time. I'm Telling
08:26Ran on Saturday mornings for a single season between 1987 and 1988. Capitalizing on the
08:32popularity of Nickelodeon's Double Dare, producer Chaim Saban came up with the idea. He told
08:37the Los Angeles Times,
08:39"'We were looking for creative ways to produce something different for children.'"
08:43Saban added that there was an overabundance of animated programming, and his show was
08:48far less expensive than a cartoon would be. The format was similar to the newly wet game,
08:53but here it was siblings who'd guess how the other would answer a revealing question.
08:57The winning pair advanced to the final round, the Pick a Prize Arcade. Host Lori Faso talked
09:03about the show with the Detroit Free Press, saying,
09:05It's not demeaning to kids, it's not educational, but there's no violence in it, and it's not
09:10going to hurt kids in any way.
09:12There were a couple of celebrity episodes of I'm Telling. In one, Sean Astin appeared
09:17alongside his brother. Other episodes featured then-unknown talents like Paul Walker, Lindsay
09:22Price, and Giovanni Ribisi. If you can find it, you can relive the magic of I'm Telling
09:27by scooping up a copy of the board game.
09:30Importing a beloved British show is always a risky proposition. For every The Office,
09:35there are dozens of failures. But Arrested Development writer-producer Brad Copeland
09:40saw potential in the raunchy U.K. comedy The Inbetweeners, a show about four teens who
09:45aren't as hip as they'd like to be. Beginning in 2012, MTV rolled out 12 episodes, some
09:50directed by Taika Waititi.
09:52We're going to go on up there and we're going to cause some havoc.
09:55Critics and fans of the original weren't willing to give it a chance to stand on its own, and
09:59new viewers perhaps didn't know what to make of it. But the U.S. version produced its own
10:04brand of laughter, especially when Zach Perlman was involved. Like the imported skins before
10:09it, The Inbetweeners remake never caught on in America and soon got the axe. Perlman penned
10:14a goodbye on Tumblr, saying,
10:16"...I will always be able to look back at and smile knowing that we did a fantastic job."
10:21According to Joe Thomas of the U.K. version, the American version was doomed from the start,
10:25as he explained to Sunday Brunch,
10:27"...they couldn't really swear very much because it was on network TV. And then you couldn't
10:31show them drinking and stuff, and that's kind of the whole show."
10:35Why do you smell like vomit and cheap alcohol?
10:37It wasn't cheap. It had gold in it.
10:40In 2005, The Globe and Mail pointed out that three major networks would, quote,
10:46"...air new dramas about the United States under attack from outside forces that fall."
10:50NBC's effort was surface, CBS had threshold, and ABC went with the unidentified frightening
10:57objects of Invasion. In an interview with Today, Invasion creator Sean Cassidy called
11:01the show
11:02"...a suspense thriller in the bright sunlight."
11:05Invasion takes place in the Everglades of Florida. The story kicks off after a devastating
11:10hurricane when strange things start to occur. Left behind in the destruction and debris
11:15are two blended families who do everything they can to stay dry and keep their bodies
11:20from being snatched by the unknown menace lurking in the wetlands. William Fichtner,
11:24who played the town's shifty sheriff, told the Lansing State Journal that they wanted
11:28to end season one with a twist. The sheriff's wife, who's presumed dead, was the mastermind
11:34all along. Unfortunately, casting took too long, leaving the series with a different,
11:39jarring cliffhanger that never got resolved. Despite desperate pleas from fans, who even
11:44flew a banner over ABC's headquarters, no one could undo the cancellation.
11:50When HBO's acclaimed series Rome fell after two seasons, Scottish actor Kevin McKidd looked
11:55around for a new project. There were plenty of generic cop dramas, but he was taken by
12:00the script for Journeyman. He told the VC Star,
12:03"...I thought it was different and interesting and really imaginative and cleverly written.
12:08That's all you can go by."
12:09The 2007 NBC series, created by Kevin Falls, centers around McKidd's Dan Vassar, a San
12:15Francisco journalist who travels back in time to right wrongs for others, while balancing
12:20the affections of his current flame and his former partner, who is presumed dead. Journeyman
12:26was compared to both The Time Traveler's Wife and Quantum Leap, and Entertainment Weekly
12:31called it,
12:32"...the awesome show the whole world is ignoring, even though it's on right after Heroes."
12:38Lukewarm ratings and a lengthy writer's strike combine to kill off the series. However, when
12:43asked about the series' sudden ending by Entertainment Weekly, Falls said,
12:46"...we do answer quite a few questions, so fans will get a feeling of closure."
12:51Falls admitted to The Hollywood Reporter that he felt bad about upending McKidd's life,
12:55uprooting his family and moving them to the United States. However, he added,
12:58"...I'm relieved to say it turned into a pot of gold."
13:01The next year, Kevin started his first of ten seasons on Grey's Anatomy. He also learned
13:06to surf.
13:08When CBS rolled out its unique and controversial reality series Kid Nation in 2007, there were
13:13a lot of concerned parents. The only adult to be found in the ghost town of Bonanza City,
13:19New Mexico, was host Jonathan Karsh, who stood on the sidelines and watched as 40 kids fended
13:24for themselves for 40 days. The idea was to form a community without descending into Lord
13:30of the Flies territory.
13:31Even before the show premiered, bad press haunted Kid Nation, largely due to the agreement
13:45parents signed, which prevented them from suing even if their child died. Hollywood
13:50reporter Nikki Fink loudly pleaded for the network to yank the show from their slate,
13:54and advertisers were initially hesitant to promote their brands alongside it. Regardless,
13:59CBS stood by Kid Nation, defending their care of the kids and even prepping a second season.
14:04The show premiered to 9.4 million viewers, proving popular with youngsters, but the numbers
14:09dipped by the end of the 13-episode run, and season two never came to be.
14:13The great thing about Kid Nation is that it pushed its contestants to new limits. Executive
14:18producer Tom Foreman told Variety,
14:20"...the part that was amazing and controversial and groundbreaking was the social element
14:25and the documentary element as the kids figured it out."
14:28Many of the kids have spoken fondly about their time on the show, which is now looked
14:31on as a fascinating TV relic.
14:35The light writing duo Stan Burns and Mike Marmur wrote for comedy greats like Milton
14:39Burrell, Steve Allen, the Smothers Brothers, and Carol Burnett. But perhaps their greatest
14:44unsung contribution to television was a show that saw them go completely ape. In an interview
14:49with The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Marmur recalled,
14:53It all started with the mad idea of making a comedy spy movie with no people, just chimps.
14:58We knew nothing about chimps or even whether such a project was possible.
15:02Oh, I just can't look. I can't believe my eyes.
15:06With help from animal trainer Frank N., a 10-minute demo film was made, and audiences
15:11went absolutely bananas over it. ABC opened their Saturday morning cages to the concept
15:17that eventually became 1970's The Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp Hour.
15:22The show centered on the titular chimpanzee and his colleagues at Ape, Matt O'Hairy and
15:27Commander Darwin. They attempted to thwart the monkey business of Chump with such rascally
15:32characters as Baron Von Butcher.
15:34This is the first step in my brilliant plan to steal and dispose of the star of Karachi,
15:40Diamond.
15:41The madness of watching these dressed-to-the-nines chimps drive motorcycles, ski, and play tennis
15:46was interspersed with small side gags called Chimpies, groovy musical interludes by the
15:51band The Evolution Revolution, and even some Looney Tunes shorts.
15:55While Lancelot Link technically ran for two seasons, the second was basically a condensed
16:00version of the first. The show would find a new generation of fans when it naturally
16:05followed reruns of The Monkees on Nick at Night in the 1990s.
16:10Life's Too Short is a hilarious one-season show from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.
16:15In a BBC press release, Gervais described the show, saying,
16:18Life's Too Short is a naturalist observational comedy dealing with everyday problems, human
16:24foibles, and social faux pas, but with a dwarf. The lead role is played by Warwick Davis,
16:29who's rarely been given the chance to show off his comedic side. Over seven episodes
16:33that began airing in 2011, Davis raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes alongside stars
16:39such as Johnny Depp, Liam Neeson, Sting, Elena Bonham Carter, and Steve Carell while being
16:45supported in clueless fashion by Gervais and Merchant.
16:56The comedy was filled with memorable moments, and Gervais had a ball working with Davis.
17:02Davis told CNN that others in the dwarf community appreciated it, saying,
17:06They find that this character doesn't paint a rosy picture, but paints more of a real
17:10picture in a sense.
17:12You're a dwarf. How can you not know hi-ho hi-ho?
17:15Gervais said a second season was on deck, but it turned into a special in which Davis
17:19was reunited with his Willow co-star Val Kilmer.
17:22In the 1980s, NBC chief Brandon Tartikoff was willing to take chances on shows that
17:27were a bit off-kilter. While one of his pet projects, Manimal, about a man who turns into
17:32animals didn't hit the mark, it didn't deter him from trying similar things, like 1985's
17:37Misfits of Science. The show followed a crew of extraordinary people who drove around in
17:42an ice cream truck. There was a scientist, a shrinking man, an electrically-charged
17:46Fonz-like guy, and a telekinetic teen. Dean Paul Martin and a young Courtney Cox were
17:52in the cast.
17:53The gang not only had to battle dastardly bad guys weekly, but also the ratings superpower
17:58that was Dallas. The lackluster special effects made the show cheesy yet endearing to young
18:03audiences who embraced it during its original run. The plot seemed crazy for the time, but
18:09that was before Marvel took over Hollywood. In a piece about the show, the Salt Lake City
18:13Tribune wrote,
18:14"...it was about a bunch of people with superpowers, so maybe it was just ahead of its time."
18:19NBC's Outsourced is a TV adaptation of a feature film which follows a group of call center
18:25workers in India. When Ken Quapis, best known for his work on The Office, saw the movie,
18:29he asked the creators if he could pitch it as a show. He told The Hollywood Reporter,
18:33"...my pitch was very simple. Whether it's a paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania,
18:38or a call center in Mumbai, the petty foibles of office life are universal."
18:43Clustered on a night of big NBC comedies alongside The Office, 30 Rock, and Community, Outsourced
18:49had a lot to live up to. And while it didn't go down well with many critics, those who
18:54liked it raved about it. While some said the show reinforced negative stereotypes, writer
19:00Gidica Lizardi wrote in a Los Angeles Times op-ed,
19:02"...the humor ultimately comes from a place of affection."
19:06Leslie Nielsen's The Naked Gun films are considered to be some of the greatest slapstick
19:11comedies of all time, but many people don't realize that his detective character, Frank
19:15Drebin, was in a TV show called Police Squad First. While promoting the hit movie Airplane,
19:21comedic masterminds Jim Abrahams and the Zucker Brothers watched a police procedural show
19:26and knew immediately that the genre was ripe for a parody.
19:30"...we would have come earlier, but your husband wasn't dead then."
19:33ABC gave the concept a six-episode trial, seeing it as a possible replacement for Mork
19:38and Mindy. Nielsen needed little convincing to sign on, saying,
19:42"...I would have paid to be in this. I'm on the same wavelength with these guys."
19:46Puns and double entendres abounded. The weekly guest star was usually killed off in the opening
19:51credits, and those who did survive, including Dick Clark, Dr. Joyce Brothers, and Tommy
19:56Lasorda, sought professional advice from an omniscient shoeshine man named Johnny.
20:01"...Johnny, some kids on the show yesterday mentioned a new kind of music, ska. You know
20:08anything about it?"
20:09Nielsen told the Minneapolis Star and Tribune,
20:11"...If ever there was a show that I thought was going to be a hit, this was it. People
20:16didn't know how to look at it."
20:17One person who did get it was Washington Post critic Tom Shales, who called it arguably
20:22the best comedy show of the 1980s.
20:26Patrick McGoohan made his name starring in the series Danger Man, released in the U.S.
20:30as Secret Agent. When he tired of the show, he quit and moved on to what has become one
20:35of the most influential shows of the 1960s, The Prisoner. This fascinating one-season
20:40British series follows an unnamed intelligence agent being held captive in a creepy village.
20:45"...Where's the police station?"
20:46"...There isn't one."
20:47"...Can I use your phone?"
20:48"...Oh, we haven't got one."
20:50The show was a metaphor for society at large. McGoohan said in a 1977 interview,
20:55"...Your village may be different from other people's villages, but we are all prisoners."
21:00The mind-bending series, which launched the catchphrase, Be Seeing You, was shot at the
21:05Welsh seaside. It featured cryptic villagers decked out in mod fashions and the creepiest
21:11ever use of a white meteorologist balloon. It even captured the hearts of the Beatles,
21:16so much so that they let the show use their song, All You Need Is Love, in an episode.
21:21George Harrison's son, Donnie, told Wired, "...it was the only time a Beatles song
21:26has ever been licensed to a TV show."
21:30The 2010 thriller series Rubicon is an overlooked gem. Speaking to The Baltimore Sun, writer
21:35Henry Brommel said that,
21:37"...Rubicon was born out of the belief that we in the United States could wake up
21:41one day soon and find our democracy gone. Not vanquished by an army, but by an almost
21:48invisible collusion between business and government. I know I'm not the only one who feels helpless
21:53and powerless in the face of this collusion."
21:56The show debuted to two million viewers, which was a record for AMC at the time, but it was
22:01soon eclipsed by a juggernaut called The Walking Dead. The numbers didn't hold up, and on
22:06a channel where Mad Men and Breaking Bad make good, Rubicon became The Walking Dead itself.
22:12In an interview with AV Club, Brommel projected that, "...James Badge Dale won't have to be
22:17doing as much starring and thinking next season."
22:21But it wasn't meant to be. Season two never happened, and a great show was lost. In 2019,
22:27The New York Times revisited the show in an article headlined, "...Ahead of its time,
22:31Rubicon still holds up." And Vultures' Vikram Murthy agreed in a piece titled, "...The time
22:36is right to rediscover Rubicon."
22:39Inspired by the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, the 1982 show Voyagers is about
22:45a time traveler named Phineas Bogg, played by John Eric Hexham, and a wise beyond-his-years
22:50orphan named Jeffrey Jones, played by Mino Pellucci. It spelled out its premise in its
22:55opening credits, "...We travel through time to help history along, give it a push where
23:00it's needed."
23:01While the show took artistic liberties with actual historical events, it was all in the
23:05name of pleasing the target audience. Pellucci told The Columbia Record, "...In this show,
23:10we roll up our sleeves, dig right in, and become part of history. It's every kid's fantasy
23:16to participate in the great events in time."
23:18Weaving through the ages, they cross paths — and sometimes swords — with Cleopatra,
23:23Abraham Lincoln, Lawrence of Arabia, Thomas Edison, Harry Houdini, Charles Lindbergh, Robin
23:29Hood, and Kublai Khan. The Washington Post hailed Voyagers as "...a joy ride from start
23:34to finish," and The Citizen's Voice praised the show for its attempts both to entertain
23:40and educate our children. Tragically, Hexham died following an unset incident with a prop
23:45gun in 1984. This meant that a second season of Voyagers could never happen, even if the
23:50network had wanted to make it. NBC had already pulled the plug, however, on account of the
23:55show struggling to go up against 60 Minutes, which aired at the same time. Voyagers remains
24:00an 80s time capsule, one that is definitely worth digging up.