Top 9 Swiftly-Cancelled TV Shows

It’s that time again! The new fall season is here, where cynical TV watchers will again make that short-sighted cry, “I won’t bother watching anything, because it’ll just be cancelled anyway.” Well, in your honor, I bring you my list of the Top 9 swiftly-cancelled TV gems. (In a list of shows cut short, how better to end it than on an odd number?) All of these shows aired just 10 episodes or less before unjustly meeting their maker. And darn it, I still miss every one of them.

9. The War Next Door (USA, 2000)

Of all the shows I’ve watched over the last two and a half decades, this has to be one of the most unique. The premise certainly hasn’t been duplicated since: a retired secret agent named Kennedy Smith (Linden Ashby) and his wife Lily (Ashby’s real-life wife Susan Walters) just so happen to live next door to his arch-nemesis, Allan Kriegman (a delightfully over-the-top Damien Young) and his amusingly named wife, Barbara Bush (Tara Rosling). Needless to say, hijinks ensued, and each episode had the unique conceit that someone always died at the end…only, of course, to come back the following week.

Admittedly, this show didn’t always make a whole lot of sense, starting with the apparent immortality of its leads. That was never the point. The point was that it was just incredibly fun, from its jazzy theme song, to ridiculous episode titles (the pilot was called by the show’s original title, “Kill, Kill, Kill”) to trying to guess who was going to get offed that week. I still think back to a scene where Kriegman is making his to-do list (“Pick up dry cleaning, kill Kennedy Smith”) and there’s an episode where he later tries to go straight..as an employee of the U.S. Postal Service. It was just tongue-in-cheek, uproarious fun. I have to wonder how this show would have done if it existed now, given USA’s more recent track record of fostering great original series. Alas, this was USA before “Characters Welcome” was a tagline, and these quirky characters lasted only eight episodes before they were pulled from the airwaves.

8. Spy Game (ABC, 1997)

Poor Linden Ashby. First they kill you off at the beginning of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (and it wasn’t even you), then you get stuck with the first two shows on this list. Ashby also toplined this very short-lived ABC spy spoof in which he played Lorne Cash, a former member of the CIA coaxed out of retirement to work for ECHO (the Emergency Counter-Hostilities Organization). His partner was smart, savvy newish agent Maxine “Max” London (a pre-The West Wing Allison Smith), while the duo’s hijinks were monitored by perpetually annoyed bureaucrat Micah Simms (Bruce McCarty) and occasionally aided by Lorne’s old friend Shank (The Equalizer‘s Keith Szarabajka).

Spy Game really wanted to be America’s attempt at bringing back something like The Avengers. It was light-hearted (the characters took themselves seriously, but for the most part, the show never took itself seriously), full of action, and it wasn’t long before Lorne and Max started heading toward becoming more than colleagues (they even kissed in an unaired episode). The show also featured a guest appearance by a pre-NCIS Michael Weatherly as Lorne’s (naturally) less than upstanding brother Jim. Yet audiences didn’t find the show as funny as I did: it lasted a grand total of three episodes before ABC pulled the plug. This one stings a little bit more because the weekend it was cancelled, I was at a convention at which the cast was due to make an appearance promoting the show. As a result, the appearance was cancelled, and I’ve still never met Linden Ashby. ABC, I still kind of hold that against you.

7. Day Break (ABC, 2006)

Get out your notebooks, because here comes one you had to practically write down to keep up with. Day Break revolved around LAPD detective Brett Hopper (a pre-Private Practice Taye Diggs), who was damned to relive the same day until he cleared his name in the murder of state attorney Alberto Garza. Naturally, the fix is in, and anyone and everyone may be involved – from Hopper’s possibly corrupt partner Andrea Battle (Victoria Pratt) to relentless Internal Affairs cop Chad Shelten (a pre-Chuck Adam Baldwin), who, in one of those “only on TV” twists, is not only Hopper’s ex-partner, but also the ex-husband of his girlfriend Rita (Moon Bloodgood, in a performance far superior to her recent guest spots on Burn Notice and Human Target).

Day Break was good television. It was a relentless conspiracy thriller that honestly kept me guessing, because every single decision Hopper made – not just the big ones, but something so small as whether or not to stop for coffee – could change the day. A unique element was that while the day repeated, he retained any injuries that he had suffered, so when he was shot in an early episode, he had to spend the next several trying to hide the wound. It was a tightly-plotted thrill ride. It also had an ace up its sleeve in yet another scene-stealing performance by Adam Baldwin, who just chewed up the scenery and spit it out again. The show’s best episode, “What If They’re Stuck?”, focuses entirely on Chad and Hopper in his office for the entire hour, letting Baldwin and Diggs go at each other. Unfortunately, I can’t rank this one higher because it did itself in: the show’s dense mythology meant viewers had to pay attention to every little detail, and most of them tuned out quickly as a result – only six episodes aired. Even I couldn’t recap it without going through six pages at a time. For those of you with long attention spans, though, you can pick up the entire series on Amazon for $7, which is a steal for some great entertainment.

6. K-Ville (FOX, 2007)

Call this one a victim of the very factors that led to its inception in the first place. This cop drama was set in a post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, and the fervent discussion over whether or not it was accurate in its depiction of the city and its people overshadowed what was honestly a good, solid buddy show that would be a jumping-off point for its two charismatic stars. Loyal, hot-tempered Marlin Boulet “In A China Shop” (Anthony Anderson, who would get the call to join Law & Order because of his work here) found himself partnered with ex-Army Ranger Trevor Cobb (Cole Hauser, making a welcome return to TV, where he hadn’t been seen in a major role since High Incident a decade earlier) to solve various crimes as part of the Felony Action Squad. And darn it, they were good at it. Anderson and Hauser gave performances that were equally good for separate reasons – the former was able to give us a man who might not look it, but could be an attack dog when he had to be, and the latter played everything close to the vest in a nuanced portrayal of a man with a lot riding on his shoulders. Not to mention that together, they bantered and bickered and saved each other’s behinds like real partners. They made a great team, and that made for great viewing.

However, K-Ville felt the heat from almost the word “go” as people argued over whether or not it was accurate in its depiction of post-disaster New Orleans, and that sensitive subject seemed to swallow the show whole. If it wasn’t that, it was criticism over whether or not Trevor’s character was plausible (viewers found out at the end of the pilot that he was in fact Trevor Lourette, an ex-con who had escaped from prison in the hurricane and falsified his background in order to turn sides), or “oh, this again” plotlines which included Trevor finding himself romantically entangled with not just his old criminal girlfriend but also the widow of his former cellmate, a fire marshal, and possibly a district attorney (come on, people, I know Cole Hauser is good-looking but really?). Between the three, K-Ville got the axe after airing ten episodes. At least the stars landed on their feet: Anderson with Law & Order and Hauser with Chase, which airs tonight on NBC.

5. Harsh Realm (FOX, 1999)

It seems that Chris Carter either creates something that hits with a zeitgeist (The X-Files) or shows which seem to pass largely unnoticed (Millenium, The Lone Gunmen, heck, even the second X-Files movie). Harsh Realm was one of Carter’s less successful attempts in television, but wow, was it interesting, and populated with some great actors, besides. Video game nerds like myself got a kick out of the premise, in which Tom Hobbes (Scott Bairstow) was sent by the Army into a wargame simulation, which turned out to be a whole separate world from which he had no apparent escape. In order to get back to his fiancee Sophie (Samantha Mathis), Hobbes had to join forces with cynical soldier Mike Pinnochio (D.B. Sweeney, in a role that almost went to Robert Patrick before Patrick turned up on X-Files) to take out the renegade General Santiago (a pre-Lost Terry O’Quinn, who’s always going to be the dad from The Cutting Edge to me anyway), who fancies himself ruler of the virtual world.

They just didn’t make shows cooler than Harsh Realm when it was on the air. The concept was so unique and the writers really went for it. Tron this was not; it was a fully involved, bleak as all get out, gritty universe populated by some truly nefarious villains (the two most notable being a pre-Smallville Sarah-Jane Redmond as Inga Fossa and Max Martini as Waters, before he’d go on to steal The Unit as hot-tempered Mack Gerhardt) and heroes with bite. If I had one complaint about the show, it was that it was almost too bleak: it’s one of those shows where I could only watch an episode or two before I started to feel depressed, as much as I loved the writing. Either I wasn’t the only one, or audiences just didn’t get it, because only three episodes aired on FOX before the remaining six got an inauspicious burn-off on FX. However, in case you missed it, you can still pick the whole show up on DVD on Amazon for $23.

4. The Unusuals (ABC, 2009)

I love cop shows; however, I’m also the first to admit that we’ve seen just about every permutation of them that we could possibly come up with. Imagine my surprise, then, to find something that I hadn’t actually seen before. The Unusuals was a cop show that almost wasn’t a cop show, because the emphasis wasn’t on “did we lock up the bad guy this week?” but on explorations of an interesting batch of characters, appropriately played by a cast of actors who had never gotten their due in some way, shape or form. The brainchild of Noah Hawley (who’s coming back to TV in a more serious way with ABC’s My Generation), the show revolved around the NYPD’s Second Squad, which not only had weird cases to deal with, but all the detectives were weird themselves. God bless them for it, because each and every one of them was not only funny to watch, but also embraceable. You were very rarely laughing at them, but with them at the world.

The “straight woman” was new recruit Casey Schraeger (Joan of Arcadia‘s Amber Tamblyn), a cop literally plucked from her vice job during a prostitution sting and trying to hide her affluent background. She was partnered with Jason Walsh (Jeremy Renner showing the acting chops most of the viewing public didn’t take notice of until The Hurt Locker, for which they should all be ashamed), a former baseball player turned cop who also owned the world’s worst diner. Walsh was also involved in a clandestine relationship with Allison Beaumont (Monique Gabriela Curnen, who would go on to small roles in Fast & Furious and the second-season finale of Lie To Me, and whom I maintain proves here that she can handle a lot more than what she’s being given). Beaumont, in turn, was partnered with the ultra-religious Henry Cole (Josh Close), who was hiding his criminal past from everyone including his fiancee. Then there was the irony in the partnership of Leo Banks (Lost’s Harold Perrineau), who never took off his bulletproof vest for fear of dying, and his teammate Eric Delahoy (Adam Goldberg), who might actually die from his brain tumor. Capping it all off was office suck-up Eddie Alvarez (Kai Lennox), who consistently referred to himself in the third person, and longsuffering boss Harvey Brown (The Mentalist‘s Terry Kinney). Oh, and let’s not forget the voice of the squad dispatcher, who’d inform our heroes of such calls as a ninja…and the ninja was the least weird of them.

The Unusuals is the closest thing I’ve ever had to getting back my eternally beloved Police Squad! Like that show, it put plenty of emphasis on the strange and the absurd, and there were laughs around pretty much every corner. Every character had some sort of quirk that could be played for comedy, and the great aspect was that it was an accepted part of who they were, rather than them all being treated by the script as freaks or outcasts. Unlike that show, however, The Unusuals also had a dramatic side rife with character development and poignant subplots, whether it was Beaumont struggling with debt or Delahoy’s awkward romance with a medical examiner. The show successfully blended the two from the start. By the end of the pilot episode (a rarity in television, as most pilots are more like test runs or backstory filler), not only had I laughed with these characters but I’d bonded with them. Renner alone is the revelation that he’s always been but no one seems to have noticed till now. As someone who’s known and worked with cops, and lost someone that I’ve loved dearly, his character’s speech at the end of the pilot in memory of his murdered partner had me in tears. It was both eloquently written and amazingly acted, and still sticks in my recall today as something that perfectly embodied what I felt at that horrible time when I lost a partner in my life. If you were crazy enough to miss this when ABC aired just 10 episodes, do yourself a favor and pick it up at Amazon for $18. You won’t be disappointed.

3. Sons & Daughters (ABC, 2006)

There have been about as many shows about seemingly dysfunctional families as there have been about cops. However, ABC’s Sons & Daughters took the cake for two reasons: its simply sprawling scope, and the fact that had actual relatable characters instead of just half-cocked caricatures. At the center of the madness was the neurotic Cameron Walker (series creator Fred Goss). Cameron was happily married to Liz (Mad TV‘s Gillian Vigman), with whom he was raising their son Ezra and Henry (Trevor Einhorn), his son from his first marriage. Cameron’s sister Sharon (Allison Quinn) had married Don Fenton (Jerry Lambert, now best known as “Kevin Butler” in all those PlayStation commercials), with whom she’d had two kids – brainy Carrie (The Middle‘s Eden Sher) and airheaded jock Jeff (Randy Wayne) – before the spark went out of their relationship. Cameron’s younger sister Jenna (Amanda Walsh), who fancied herself a famous singer, was really a waitress after being knocked up in high school by town idiot Tommy “Whitey” White (Office Space‘s Greg Pitts) had left her a single mom and oblivious to the fact that her adorable boss, Wylie Blake (a pre-Dexter Desmond Harrington), had a crush on her. Lording over all of this were Cameron’s parents Colleen (Dee Wallace-Stone) and Wendal (the always great to see Max Gail). Oh, and did I mention they made all this up as they went along?! Yep. As the voice-over was keen to tell us each week, “The dialogue in Sons & Daughters is partially improvised,” meaning the cast worked off an outline of plot points and was free to say or do whatever to get to them. Whose Line Is It Anyway, eat your heart out.

This endearing, hilarious comedy had a stellar cast from top to bottom, led by an Emmy-worthy (he was actually on TV Guide‘s dream Emmy ballot for the 2006 season) performance by Fred Goss. These were people you might not have heard of, but they were great at riffing off each other while pretending to take everything perfectly seriously. Jerry Lambert and Allison Quinn were both a dozen different kinds of crazy and it was amazing. I remember hearing that Desmond Harrington had joined the show and thinking, “What? This guy’s going to be on a sitcom? He doesn’t do sitcoms!” Yet as the straight man who sometimes had no idea what was going on, he was nothing short of brilliant, and I have no idea why he hasn’t done more comedy, because he honestly has a talent for it. Case in point, a scene from the pilot in which Whitey turns up and causes a scene at the restaurant:

Jenna: I am really sorry.
Wylie: It’s fine. Let’s just hope he never procreates.
Jenna: (awkward half-beat) He’s the father of my child.
Wylie: Oh, my God. Great, that’s…Smooth. I’m so sorry. I apologize. (another awkward pause) What did you ever see in him?
Jenna: He was cool in high school.
Wylie: (totally not believing himself) …I was cool in high school too.

The show was a bunch of great actors being let loose to do anything and everything, and the result was something special – whether it was rooting for the nice guy Wylie as he pined for a completely oblivious Jenna, or laughing way too hard at Cameron being forced to sing Black Sabbath during a karaoke night, or the heartwrenching appearance of Cameron’s ex to claim her son in the unaired finale “Paige Returns.”

I had the pleasure of meeting and becoming friends with Fred Goss while this show was on the air, and as a result, getting to meet some of the cast at an event toward the end of its run, which is how I can say that this was a special group of sweet, funny, witty people – and that showed through on the screen. What you saw was genuine in a way no other show could be, because more than any other show, Sons & Daughters was left in the hands, hearts and minds of its talented cast. I still get excited when I see Jerry Lambert in those commercials, because I remember Don Fenton. Even the theme song (Cheap Trick’s “Surrender”) still makes me smile. Too bad there were only ten episodes.

Sadly, because of music rights issues, it looks like Sons & Daughters will never see DVD (though some clips remain on YouTube). The next best thing is Fred Goss’s previous and also improvised BRAVO series, Significant Others, an equally hilarious two-season series about four couples in therapy. It’s out of print, but can still be obtained through third-party sellers on Amazon for less than $10.

2. Traveler (ABC, 2007)

How this deftly-written, well-cast conspiracy thriller didn’t succeed is a mystery to me. It had everything going for it: an intriguing premise, solid writing, and a great main cast led by a trio of breakout stars in Matt Bomer (before he was Bryce Larkin on Chuck and well ahead of his emergence as Neal Caffrey on White Collar), Logan Marshall-Green (who would go on to TNT’s Dark Blue), and Aaron Stanford (prior to Nikita). The trio played Jay Burchell, Tyler Fog and Will Traveler, college roommates and best friends, whose world was turned upside down when Will apparently blew up the Drexler Museum and framed his two friends for the terrorist act. Now on the run from the FBI, with everyone they loved at risk and everything they knew in question, Jay and Tyler had to answer one big question: who was Will Traveler, really?

The actors were Traveler‘s strong suit. Anyone could see that Bomer, Marshall-Green and Stanford were going to make their mark, and the three of them together was a compelling combination. They were supported by a trio of underrated veteran actors playing the FBI agents: Desperate Housewives‘ Steven Culp as boss Fred Chambers, with Doubt‘s Viola Davis and Third Watch‘s Anthony Ruivivar playing his agents, Jan Marlow and Guillermo Borjes. The show capped the casting off near what would be series’ end by bringing in electric Boomtown star Neal McDonough as villain Jack Freed, and then was bold enough to blow him up in what would be the series finale. With a stable of actors that good, the scripts had to be worthy of their talent, and the Byzantine intrigue didn’t disappoint. Twists and turns were everywhere. Jay’s girlfriend Kim (Pascale Hutton) tried to help him and got kidnapped for her trouble. Tyler’s father was possibly in on the whole thing. Will turned out to be a bad guy, then a good guy…or was he? Chambers shot Borjes when the agent got too close to learning that he was, in fact, working as part of the conspiracy – not the first time he’d killed for it, as we learned he’d murdered his own wife to protect the secret of the “Fourth Branch” of government. Nothing and no one was anything like you expected, and in a good way, not in the “we’re making this up as we go along and have lost sight of continuity” way. Viewers, however, couldn’t hang on and the literally explosive cliffhanger at the end of Traveler‘s eighth episode was left unresolved.

The show is unique, though, in that it got a little bit of a reprieve. After cancellation, show creator David DiGilio took to TVGuide.com and revealed his outline for the entire three seasons the series would have run, answering all of fans’ questions and revealing information that even the actors didn’t know. It’s heartbreaking because it’s so good, you can practically see how amazing the episodes would have been. The conspiracy goes all the way to the President of the United States, and getting there is a stunning battle. We meet Chambers’ daughter, who begins a forbidden romance with Tyler. Marlow, like her partner, is murdered by her boss after turning against him, but Chambers himself ultimately swaps sides to protect his daughter where he failed to save his wife. His daughter’s heart is broken, however, when Tyler is killed – at the hands of his own brother, who’s working for Fourth Branch. Will sacrifices himself to save Jay, who is literally the last man standing and who ultimately emerges as the hero. Just writing that paragraph gives me chills thinking about how good that all would have been had it been brought to air. That’s why Traveler is still sitting on my DVR in its entirety three years later. It was simply mindblowing, and I’ll always be frustrated that it never got to completely unfold.

1. Cupid (ABC, 1998)

Oh, Cupid. You were so awesome that ABC tried to air you twice, and yanked you off quickly both times. But I’m not interested in the 2007 edition, which, while not badly cast (with Third Watch‘s Bobby Cannavale and Studio 60‘s Sarah Paulson), can’t hold a candle to the magic of the 1998 original, something I consider one of the top shows ever to air on TV. Set in Chicago, it centers around Trevor Hale (Jeremy Piven, before Entourage and the inflation of his ego), who may or may not be the titular God of Love, and whose goal is to unite a hundred couples on Earth. Trying to keep him in line and figure him out is his court-appointed shrink, relationship therapist Dr. Claire Allen (the always underrated Paula Marshall). Needless to say, sparks fly all over this show, most notably between Marshall and Piven, who have a banter that just makes you embrace them and beg for them to realize they’re perfect for each other.

Cupid was a show for unabashed romantics, and it showed. It was a good-hearted, uplifting, touching adventure that wasn’t afraid to be idealistic in a cynical world. It had a great roster of guest stars – Stargate: Atlantis‘ Joe Flanigan played Alex, a love interest for Claire, and various patients and potential targets for Trevor included Sons & Daughters‘ Gillian Vigman, White Collar‘s Tim DeKay and Tiffani Thiessen (not in the same episode, sadly), Buffy The Vampire Slayer‘s Harry Groener, Twin Peaks‘ Sherilyn Fenn (who had herself been paired with Piven in the romantic comedy Just Write the year before), and singer Lisa Loeb, plus CSI‘s Jeffrey D. Sams in a regular role as Trevor’s roommate and employer, Champ. There wasn’t a bad episode in the ten that aired, which will likely never see DVD due to rights issues (even the show’s creator bought himself a pirated set off eBay).

The writers – which included creator Rob Thomas, who would go on to Veronica Mars, and Bones‘ Hart Hanson – tackled plots that were both touching and engaging the various questions about love and romance in an adult manner. For example, in “Lost Loves,” Trevor and Claire go with Champ’s friend Sophie (Loeb) on a road trip to find her first (and last) love – from when she was thirteen. That story alone is sweet, but there’s also a poignant subplot involved as Trevor believes Claire is going to follow another doctor’s recommendation to undertake a drastic medical procedure that will forever change him, but she actually prevents that from happening. Likewise, in “Heart of the Matter,” it’s impossible not to cry as Trevor matches up a dying woman with a hockey coach who is then killed in a car accident – but his heart ends up saving her life. If Cupid doesn’t warm your heart, I’d wonder if you had one to begin with.

At the core of Cupid, however, was the chemistry between Trevor and Claire, who were very clearly meant for each other in an age when love interests weren’t forcibly written into every show from the pilot episode. (Ah, the good old days.) Their relationship slowly blossomed in bits and pieces, and fans pulled for them to get together every episode. It’s the very definition of that iconic phrase “one true pairing,” as it was allegedly inspired by the legend of Cupid and Psyche, Psyche being the “deification of the human soul.” In other words, pairing the two would have united the heart and soul. How fitting. After the show’s cancellation, Rob Thomas revealed in an interview that the series would have eventually ended with Trevor and Claire becoming that one hundredth match – and letting the viewers decide whether or not Trevor really was Cupid. He claims he always wrote it as if that wasn’t the case, but it’s a testament to how great a romance he wove that myself and the rest of the fanbase still like to believe that he was. We believed in the power of love, and that’s why Cupid nabs the top spot on my countdown.

If I’ve learned anything from this list, and from other shows that were yanked before their time in various forms, it’s that we ought to appreciate shows while we have them, because we never know when we might lose them. (Also, that ABC really likes to cancel good shows rather quickly.) Yes, none of these shows even lasted a season, or in some cases, not even a month. Yet each of them brought something worth watching, whether it was a touching moment or a funny one, a dramatic twist or a memorable character, something I would never have seen if I hadn’t tried. I empathize with frustrated fans who are upset when the shows they love get cancelled, and are wary of investing time and energy again. However, let me say this to all of you: no matter how many times that happens, don’t let it get the better of you. Appreciate what you have, instead of still ruing what you’ve lost. Otherwise, you might just miss something good, no matter how long it lasts.