TV Shows That Were Cancelled Too Soon

I know I’m out of sync with the tastes of mainstream America, but the television networks remind me of this fact frequently by canceling shows that I enjoy.  I have followed some hits from the beginning – I watched every episode of The Wonder Years, I can finish sentences on Friends reruns, and I’m now hooked on Monk and Ugly Betty – but each new season, I am afraid to watch the shows look good because I suspect they will be cancelled by the time I get really interested in them. (Look out Ugly Betty – with me watching, you might not make it past this season, no matter how popular you are!)

My first television heartbreak was back in 1987 when my middle-school celebrity crush, Corey Haim, starred in Roomies, a comedy about a young genius going to college early only to be paired as a roommate with a retired military man old enough to be his father.  I loved the show, probably because it gave a lot of screen time to those cute Corey dimples, but it was cancelled after one season.  (In retrospect, this show probably wasn’t all that good after all. Years later, I saw a rerun on a cable channel somewhere, and I understood why it had been cancelled.  I don’t think even the cable channel kept it on long.)

After I got over losing Roomies, I fell in love with Boston Common, another college sitcom. On this show, Anthony Clark (who went on to star in Yes, Dear) played a fish-out-of-water role, a country boy and protective older brother who drove his sister to college in Boston and decided to stay.  His love interest, Joy, was played by Traylor Howard, who is now on my current favorite, Monk.  I caught Boston Common on reruns, as well, but I still don’t understand why it was cancelled after only two seasons.

Although I’m not a big fan of reality TV (I use television for an escape from reality), I have followed a few reality shows.  One of the first that caught my attention was The Ultimate Love Test, in 2004.  Its premise sounds cruel – couples at a crossroads in their relationship were split up, and one person from each couple was taken to Mexico to be met by a person (or people) who represented something he or she missed in the current relationship (an ex-boyfriend in one case, a well-traveled man in another) while the other member of the couple stayed home and watched what transpired on video.  The show wasn’t quite as prurient as Temptation Island; rather than using temptation to try to break up the couples, it stuck fairly close to its stated goal of seeing if the couples’ relationships were strong enough to withstand difficulties.  It brought up some interesting questions about the decisions we make when we search for a mate and gave some insight into a variety of relationship issues.  I am still disappointed they didn’t produce a second season.

Also in 2004, my husband and I started to watch Complete Savages, which featured another Boston Common alumnus, Vincent Ventresca. As a typical one-parent family sitcom, it wasn’t groundbreaking television, but we enjoyed it (and its theme song).  Had I been fifteen years younger, I would have watched it just for the cute boys! By then, I was starting to sense a pattern in the shows I enjoyed.  I wasn’t surprised when Complete Savages only lasted for nineteen episodes.

My biggest disappointment, however, came when I started to follow Reunion in 2005.  Each episode took place in a different year, and each week gave a few more clues as to who killed the character found dead the first week.  FOX heavily promoted the show only to cancel it mid-season, before we even learned why Craig pretended to need a wheelchair or when Will became a priest.  I am still disgusted that FOX couldn’t even commit to finishing the story it started, and seeing an ad for the show in our local mall after the show mysteriously disappeared from the schedule just made me promise myself not to get interested in any more shows promoted by FOX.

In addition to these shows, a few I enjoyed lasted more than a season or two but still seemed to end too soon – Norm (starring Norm Macdonald and featuring another fun theme song) and Early Edition (which was always aired at an inconvenient time – Saturday nights, if I remember correctly) are two.  I wonder if these shows would have done better had they received more network support or premiered at a time when that particular type of show (sitcom and sci-fi drama, respectively) was popular.

Am I alone in this tendency to like shows that die premature deaths?  Should I just give up on trying to find a show I can love? Are there more shows to add to my list of good shows that didn’t last longer than one of Murphy Brown’s secretaries? I’d love to hear your comments.