Shows That: Died Before Their Time, Never Got A Fair Shot, Or Were Ahead Of Their Time

[DrSpaceman]

On ‎5‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 4:19 AM, Annber03 said:

I'll put "Trial & Error" in here. Given the comparisons to other comedies that were similar in style and humor ("Parks and Rec", for instance), I'm kinda surprised that this one didn't become as big and long-running as those. I imagine there'd be other cases they could've been inspired by for stories, or heck, they could've started coming up with their own unusual ones that would've been interesting for the gang to investigate. I also think there were other fun stories about the weirdness that is East Peck in general to explore 😛. 

Plus, I just loved the cast and characters, so if nothing else, I wish it could've stuck around for that reason alone. I am glad that we got two seasons, though. 

I think this originally being a summer show with little to no promotion hurt it

I saw the first season and really enjoyed it, then kind of forgot about it.  Did they do a second or something beyond that?

I think this is one that would have worked better as a Netflix/AMazon/hulu original rather than as a network show. 

[Annber03]

7 minutes ago, DrSpaceman said:

I think this originally being a summer show with little to no promotion hurt it

I saw the first season and really enjoyed it, then kind of forgot about it.  Did they do a second or something beyond that?

I think this is one that would have worked better as a Netflix/AMazon/hulu original rather than as a network show. 

They did do a second season, yes, last summer :). And it's quite good. I think it should be online to watch if you're interested. I agree it would've been interesting to see how this show could've fared had it been online from the start. 

[Ohwell]

I was disappointed that Feed the Beast with David Schwimmer got only one season in 2016.

[kathyk2]

Can I add Speechless to the list? It's one of the few shows to feature a disabled actor in a lead role. It ran for three seasons but ABC didn't promote it. Also the Muppet Show reboot on ABC Early episodes weren't great but it improved with a new showrunner. ABC didn't promote it again.

[Chaos Theory]

I am guessing someone needs to add The Kids Are Alright.  Its was a great show. One of the few family sitcoms I really liked.  But the time slot was awful

[Chaos Theory]

I also would like to add Proven Innocent.  It wasn’t a favorite on this site and it was slow to start and had some problems but it was a show with a lot of possibilities.

[SimoneS]

American Gothic (1995). I loved that show. It was too dark to attract a large audience. I think it would be still doomed if it aired today.

Edited May 19, 2019 by SimoneS

[Lugal]

2 from the 90s:

Maximum Bob - based off an Elmore Leonard story about a small town Florida judge played by Beau Bridges, with enough weirdness/magic realism to make it interesting.

Roar - featuring a young pre-fame Heath Ledger trying to unite the Celtic tribes against the Romans late in the empire.  Unfortunately it came out the same time as Hercules and Xena and as the episodes went on you could see the network interference as the characters were pared down to Heath Ledger and his mentor/sidekick adventuring around and helping people.  Nowadays, if they made it more historically accurate or grittier I think it could work.

[blueray]

Someone probably said this but Daredevil. If it wasn't Disney controlling everything and Netflix not being able to put in the money or whatever really happened. This show would still be on. It was a really good show, well written and acted.

[ganesh]

I just started watching Lucifer and it made me think of Brimstone. 

[festivus]

15 hours ago, Lugal said:

Maximum Bob - based off an Elmore Leonard story about a small town Florida judge played by Beau Bridges, with enough weirdness/magic realism to make it interesting.

I loved this one! Didn't it only make it for like six episodes? I can't remember, I just remember being sad about it being cancelled but I was used to quirky stuff I liked getting the axe.

[DearEvette]

Big Shots - aired on ABC in 2007 for one season.  It was a breezy, guilty pleasure kinda like Mistresses was, except it was about four guy friends. 

I thought it was well cast with Dylan McDermott and Michael Vartan being stand outs.  And four main male cast characters were all different from each other and had different enough storylines that is was interesting.

Of the female characters Nia Long and Paige Turco were my favorites.

The show started out a little glib and glitzy, but I thought it hit its stride in the second half of its season.  I especially liked the storyline of Michael Vartan and Nia Long's BFFs James & Katie who slowly realized they really liked liked each other.  They had great on screen chemistry  and snappy banter (although I think the show lit Nia Long criminally bad).

I think it was a casualty of the writer's strike.  Too bad.

[ganesh]

There's a lot of shows back then that were casualties. It's too bad because the networks were talking an interesting creative turn (which might have been due to Lost). 

I've mentioned Flashfoward and Journeyman before. 

[theredhead77]

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Got cancelled on a f'ng cliff hanger, revealing

that Captain America wasn't Cap, but a Skrull!

I reallllly wanted to see that play out. Such a good show.

[ramble]

On 5/15/2019 at 9:12 AM, ganesh said:

Farscape. 

Farscape. YES! Sorry to yell. I’m doing a rewatch (again) and last night watched “Crackers Don’t Matter.” When John dressed up to go fight I laughed so hard I was crying. I miss this show. 

I liked Limitless the tv show much more than the movie and thought it had potential.  I also thought The Finder had promise, but sadly it was not to be. 

[Ohwell]

Underground

Outsiders

[ganesh]

54 minutes ago, ramble said:

Farscape. YES! Sorry to yell. I’m doing a rewatch (again) and last night watched “Crackers Don’t Matter.” When John dressed up to go fight I laughed so hard I was crying. I miss this show. 

Humans are superior! 

We are all going to die. 

[cpcathy]

On ‎5‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 4:51 PM, kathyk2 said:

Can I add Speechless to the list? It's one of the few shows to feature a disabled actor in a lead role. It ran for three seasons but ABC didn't promote it. Also the Muppet Show reboot on ABC Early episodes weren't great but it improved with a new showrunner. ABC didn't promote it again.

If I was in charge of ABC, after the Constance Wu debacle I would have canceled FOTB and renewed Speechless.

[Bort]

11 minutes ago, cpcathy said:

If I was in charge of ABC, after the Constance Wu debacle I would have canceled FOTB and renewed Speechless.

Cave and give her what she wants? That show will be on for ten more seasons now.

[biakbiak]

9 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

That show will be on for ten more seasons now.

She’s most likely only contracted through six which is standard when you sign on for a pilot. 

[cpcathy]

25 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

Cave and give her what she wants? That show will be on for ten more seasons now.

Pretty much, her film career isn't going anywhere special. I was super unimpressed with CRA.

It seems like a lot of people really like Speechless, so give them what they want.

[Haleth]

On 5/19/2019 at 5:50 PM, Lugal said:

Roar - featuring a young pre-fame Heath Ledger trying to unite the Celtic tribes against the Romans late in the empire.  Unfortunately it came out the same time as Hercules and Xena and as the episodes went on you could see the network interference as the characters were pared down to Heath Ledger and his mentor/sidekick adventuring around and helping people.  Nowadays, if they made it more historically accurate or grittier I think it could work.

A year or so ago I caught a series on Prime called Britannia which had a similar plot.  It starred David Morrissey (the Governor from TWD) and Kelly Reilly (who I knew best as Caroline Bingley from Pride & Prejudice).  It was dreadful but I watched the whole season.  Gritty?  Yeah.  Historically accurate?  I doubt it.  There was no season 2.

[Llywela]

1 hour ago, Haleth said:

A year or so ago I caught a series on Prime called Britannia which had a similar plot.  It starred David Morrissey (the Governor from TWD) and Kelly Reilly (who I knew best as Caroline Bingley from Pride & Prejudice).  It was dreadful but I watched the whole season.  Gritty?  Yeah.  Historically accurate?  I doubt it.  There was no season 2.

There is a season two, it just hasn't aired yet - due later this year I believe. I'm not sure how I know that, though, since I took one look at the premise and decided not to watch - the English should not be allowed to make shows about ancient Celts.

[Anduin]

1 hour ago, Llywela said:

There is a season two, it just hasn't aired yet - due later this year I believe. I'm not sure how I know that, though, since I took one look at the premise and decided not to watch - the English should not be allowed to make shows about ancient Celts.

The Celts were scattered from Ireland to the Ukraine, with England in between. Why shouldn't the English make a show about their ancestors?

[Llywela]

11 minutes ago, Anduin said:

The Celts were scattered from Ireland to the Ukraine, with England in between. Why shouldn't the English make a show about their ancestors?

Because the Celts are not the ancestors of the English. The Anglo-Saxons were the ancestors of the English and they came to this island later, as invaders, forcing the Celts to the fringes. But whenever the English attempt to tell stories about the early Celts, those stories inevitably end up imbued with heavily Anglo-centric themes and motifs that have no place there. 

[Jaded]

I'm not sure if anyone else remembers The Book of Daniel from 2006 which aired on NBC. Eight episodes were made but only four aired. The show's wiki explained how affiliates refuse to air it due to the content being controversial at the time. It was a really interesting and fun show which I think if it had aired in the last few years would have survived to the point of maybe even thrived. 

[ganesh]

Prison Break. 

1. The show could have easily rotated the cast as the breakers completed their sentences and they brought new ones in. 

2. Hearing 'excape' every week. 

[Hyacinth B]

I don't know what happened to the 3 years of posts between 2016 and 2019 (does anyone have the link if they're archived here somewhere?) so I'm just going to throw in a quick mention of 2 favorites that disappeared during that gap, The Muppets and Galavant. The Muppets especially could have kept on going for a long time once viewers learned to accept the more adult storylines. Galavant had pretty much wrapped up most of its stories, and Tim Omundson's illness probably would have created a gap on Galavant that would have been tough to fill, but they were both great shows. Two very bad decisions by the Already Been Canceled Network.

(SIGH) I really miss King Richard and Uncle Deadly!

[Irlandesa]

2 hours ago, Hyacinth B said:

The Muppets and Galavant.

Galavant can be found here: https://forums.primetimer.com/forum/830-galavant-v/

It looks like the M shows disappeared but you can find the old posts in the Vault.

https://forums.primetimer.com/forum/4377-the-vault/

[Bastet]

1 hour ago, Irlandesa said:

It looks like the M shows disappeared

Yes, with the major forum update at the beginning of the year, the M shows vault went poof, never to be restored.  And the M Vault page was never archived, in the few months it existed, by the Wayback Machine at Internet Archive.  If, via that site, you pull up the last-archived version of a particular M show forum as it existed at the time, you can see some stuff, but it's a limited selection (severely limited in the case of a forum that had "Previous Seasons" sub-forums).

[ganesh]

I don't think Galavant was a show that could have a long life but it still had some left. 

The Enchanted Forest alone warranted another season. 

[Popples]

I think Galavant would have run 3-4 seasons if they had aired it during the summer instead of January up against the NFL playoffs.

I also wish that Telenovela had gotten another season, I thought it was really funny. I'll love this clip forever!

[Hyacinth B]

20 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

Galavant can be found here: https://forums.primetimer.com/forum/830-galavant-v/

It looks like the M shows disappeared but you can find the old posts in the Vault.

https://forums.primetimer.com/forum/4377-the-vault/

18 hours ago, Bastet said:

Yes, with the major forum update at the beginning of the year, the M shows vault went poof, never to be restored.  And the M Vault page was never archived, in the few months it existed, by the Wayback Machine at Internet Archive.  If, via that site, you pull up the last-archived version of a particular M show forum as it existed at the time, you can see some stuff, but it's a limited selection (severely limited in the case of a forum that had "Previous Seasons" sub-forums).

9 hours ago, ganesh said:

I don't think Galavant was a show that could have a long life but it still had some left. 

The Enchanted Forest alone warranted another season. 

Thanks for the information everyone!

At least I have my Galavant dvds. But it's a shame that I'll never have a chance to post the words "Vinnie Jones" and "comic genius" in the same sentence.

[QueerGirrl]

Telenovela was so good.   Much better than Superstore in my opinion. 

[tennisgurl]

15 hours ago, Popples said:

I think Galavant would have run 3-4 seasons if they had aired it during the summer instead of January up against the NFL playoffs.

I think three or four seasons would have been perfect, and I think if the network knew how to market Galavant, it could have lasted. it was such a great show, I still miss it. And I still super believe in your, Tad Cooper!

My heart is still broken by the Netflix One Day at a Time being cancelled after just three seasons. It was so funny and heartwarming and really was able to deal with complex social issues in ways that were actually interesting and complicated, without just lecturing the audience or losing the sense of fun. 

I am still super salty that Selfie was cancelled so quickly. It had a silly name, but it was such a fun and charming series, really funny and sweet, and it used its "modern version of My Fair Lady" premise in really interesting ways. Plus, how can you go wrong with  Karen Gillan and John Cho?!?

[ratgirlagogo]

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

I am still super salty that Selfie was cancelled so quickly. It had a silly name, but it was such a fun and charming series, really funny and sweet, and it used its "modern version of My Fair Lady" premise in really interesting ways. Plus, how can you go wrong with  Karen Gillan and John Cho?!?

I never understood this either.  It was so wonderful and very unlike any other comedy on TV then, or now for that matter.  Partly a victim of heavy promotion, maybe? Since the main character seemed so initially repellant, and  the characters took some time to develop and were very different by episode 5 or 6 than they had been in the pilot.  Still, huge bummer.  It had gotten so good by the time they yanked it, I'll always believe it would have become great.

[ganesh]

Forever.  

[catlover79]

On 8/18/2014 at 1:59 AM, BigDfromLA said:

The Net appeared on USA Network I think in 1998, on Sunday nights. It was the TV version of the Sandra Bullock film with Brooke Langton playing Angela Bennett. I thought it was an excellent show and Joseph Bottoms was great as the villain, Trelawney. 

Joseph Bottoms has always excelled at playing villains - especially that of slimy lawyer Kirk "The Jerk" Cranston on the long-defunct NBC soap opera Santa Barbara.

[catlover79]

On 11/3/2014 at 9:43 PM, UYI said:

I haven't seen the whole thread yet, but this weird phenomenon has to be addressed:

In 1991, three different period shows premiered, one on each of the Big Three networks. All three were cancelled after two seasons in 1993. ABC had Homefront, CBS had Brooklyn Bridge.

But NBC had the one I watched: I'll Fly Away. I'm only old enough to watch the tapes my mom recorded back then, but what a BRILLIANT show. To this day, I think of Sam Waterston being on that show more than anything else.

You had a kindred spirit in my grandmother. She loved all three of those shows and was so disappointed when each one was cancelled. 

[catlover79]

Another show that never got a chance was Christy, which lasted 20 episodes and ran on CBS (sporadically) from spring 1994 to summer 1995. Kellie Martin played the title character, a young woman of privilege in 1912 who arrives in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee to teach in an impoverished mission school. Tyne Daly played her mentor and Tess Harper a local woman who became her best friend. The show was filmed entirely on location in Tennessee, not far from where Catherine Marshall's novel was set (which had been based on the life of her mother). 

Despite drawing the most viewer response of any show in the network's history up to that time (in cards and letters, as this was pre-Internet), I think what ultimately doomed the show was a changing of the guard at CBS. The president of the network left and was replaced by *shudders* Les Moonves. (The first of many reasons to dislike him, but I digress.)

Still, the show still holds a special place in my heart because it was the last thing my grandmother and I bonded over before her passing in spring 1995. Even when we couldn't watch together, we would call each other during commercial breaks and discuss what had happened in the episode thus far. She was distressed when the show kept being put on "hiatus" and would always ask me when it would be back. Again, being pre-Internet, there was no way of knowing what was going on except for an occasional blurb in the TV section of the paper.

Today, I think Christy would have had a much better chance of making it. Twitter campaigns alone would have kept it in the public eye. It would have fit perfectly on the Hallmark Channel. Too bad a lot of the channels we have now weren't around in 1995.

[festivus]

I was thinking about posting about Homefront so that was weird seeing the post. Homefront was a show that me, my mom and my two best friends all loved and we all have much different tastes in TV shows. We'd all call each other to discuss the show after every episode. No forum discussion back then at least not any I was aware of!

Oh and anybody from that show is now like there's so and so from Homefront, no matter what else they've been in. Oh, that's Kyle Chandler from Homefront. Oh, that's John Slattery from Homefront. lol. We were all so devastated when it was cancelled. We bitched about it for years.

[UYI]

The Kids Are Alright! I cannot believe this show just got cancelled! 

[QueerGirrl]

My heart still hurts about the One Day at a Time cancelation. 

[DearEvette]

2 hours ago, UYI said:

The Kids Are Alright! I cannot believe this show just got cancelled! 

This reminds me that I was bummed when The Real O'Neals got cancelled.  I liked that show and Martha Plimpton was especially great in it.  I don't remember if the ratings were really that bad, but I think on some level their cancellation was because the lead actor pissed the bed and as a result everybody got punished. 

[jah1986]

3 hours ago, festivus said:

I was thinking about posting about Homefront so that was weird seeing the post. Homefront was a show that me, my mom and my two best friends all loved and we all have much different tastes in TV shows. We'd all call each other to discuss the show after every episode. No forum discussion back then at least not any I was aware of!

Oh and anybody from that show is now like there's so and so from Homefront, no matter what else they've been in. Oh, that's Kyle Chandler from Homefront. Oh, that's John Slattery from Homefront. lol. We were all so devastated when it was cancelled. We bitched about it for years.

Oh my goodness did I love Homefront. And why oh why isn't it anywhere so I can see it again?  I was so invested in Jeff and Ginger.

8 hours ago, catlover79 said:

Another show that never got a chance was Christy, which lasted 20 episodes and ran on CBS (sporadically) from spring 1994 to summer 1995. Kellie Martin played the title character, a young woman of privilege in 1912 who arrives in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee to teach in an impoverished mission school. Tyne Daly played her mentor and Tess Harper a local woman who became her best friend. The show was filmed entirely on location in Tennessee, not far from where Catherine Marshall's novel was set (which had been based on the life of her mother). 

Despite drawing the most viewer response of any show in the network's history up to that time (in cards and letters, as this was pre-Internet), I think what ultimately doomed the show was a changing of the guard at CBS. The president of the network left and was replaced by *shudders* Les Moonves. (The first of many reasons to dislike him, but I digress.)

Still, the show still holds a special place in my heart because it was the last thing my grandmother and I bonded over before her passing in spring 1995. Even when we couldn't watch together, we would call each other during commercial breaks and discuss what had happened in the episode thus far. She was distressed when the show kept being put on "hiatus" and would always ask me when it would be back. Again, being pre-Internet, there was no way of knowing what was going on except for an occasional blurb in the TV section of the paper.

Today, I think Christy would have had a much better chance of making it. Twitter campaigns alone would have kept it in the public eye. It would have fit perfectly on the Hallmark Channel. Too bad a lot of the channels we have now weren't around in 1995.

I also loved Christy and hated the re-make/re-boot they did with a new cast.  I much preferred the doctor over the reverend for Christy.

[andromeda331]

13 hours ago, catlover79 said:

Another show that never got a chance was Christy, which lasted 20 episodes and ran on CBS (sporadically) from spring 1994 to summer 1995. Kellie Martin played the title character, a young woman of privilege in 1912 who arrives in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee to teach in an impoverished mission school. Tyne Daly played her mentor and Tess Harper a local woman who became her best friend. The show was filmed entirely on location in Tennessee, not far from where Catherine Marshall's novel was set (which had been based on the life of her mother). 

Despite drawing the most viewer response of any show in the network's history up to that time (in cards and letters, as this was pre-Internet), I think what ultimately doomed the show was a changing of the guard at CBS. The president of the network left and was replaced by *shudders* Les Moonves. (The first of many reasons to dislike him, but I digress.)

Still, the show still holds a special place in my heart because it was the last thing my grandmother and I bonded over before her passing in spring 1995. Even when we couldn't watch together, we would call each other during commercial breaks and discuss what had happened in the episode thus far. She was distressed when the show kept being put on "hiatus" and would always ask me when it would be back. Again, being pre-Internet, there was no way of knowing what was going on except for an occasional blurb in the TV section of the paper.

Today, I think Christy would have had a much better chance of making it. Twitter campaigns alone would have kept it in the public eye. It would have fit perfectly on the Hallmark Channel. Too bad a lot of the channels we have now weren't around in 1995.

I really loved that show! 

[biakbiak]

4 hours ago, jah1986 said:

my goodness did I love Homefront. And why oh why isn't it anywhere so I can see it again?  I was so invested in Jeff and Ginger.

The fact that it’s not streaming anywhere baffles me!!! The main hiccup for such things is music but all or nearly all the music used was in the public domain and anything that wasn’t would be easy to switch out. 

[Lugal]

On 5/22/2019 at 11:22 PM, tennisgurl said:

I am still super salty that Selfie was cancelled so quickly. It had a silly name, but it was such a fun and charming series, really funny and sweet, and it used its "modern version of My Fair Lady" premise in really interesting ways. Plus, how can you go wrong with  Karen Gillan and John Cho?!?

it annoyed me because it always felt like they got about 2/3 through the story on Selfie.  And I don't think they could afford Karen Gillan and John Cho on TV now.

On 5/22/2019 at 5:34 PM, QueerGirrl said:

Telenovela was so good.   Much better than Superstore in my opinion. 

I had high hopes for Superstore because I was working retail at the time, but it never lived up to the potential, it lacked the bite that any show about retail workers should have.  Telenovela was the much better series, and I'm still disappointed that it was canceled.

Edited May 25, 2019 by Lugal

[catlover79]

9 hours ago, jah1986 said:

I also loved Christy and hated the re-make/re-boot they did with a new cast.  I much preferred the doctor over the reverend for Christy.

The "sequel" movies were also filmed in British Columbia. I know it was for budgetary reasons, but the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee were as much of a character of the show/book as the humans. It made as much sense as if someone had decided to do an Anne of Green Gables series in the Smoky Mountains instead of Canada. 

Yes, count me as another one who wanted to see Christy - Kellie Martin's Christy - with Dr. MacNeill. Their chemistry was electric!!