Favorite quickly cancelled television series

Man from Atlantis
Barbary Coast

 

Definitely Studio 60 for me. Also, when I was a kid (mid-70s), I was a big fan of a show called "The Invisible Man," which starred current NCIS cast member David McCallum as the title character. Of course, this 8-year-old might have liked it, but apparently not too many other people did because it came and went without much fanfare.

 

First show I remember just killing me as a little kid when it was cancelled: When Things Were Rotten - a Mel Brooks 30-minute comedy with Dick Gautier as Robin Hood and Dick Van Patten as Friar Tuck...

 

am a HUGE sorkin/'west wing' fan. i mean, effin' HUGE. BUT 'STUDIO 60' was a huge disappointment, even to someone like me who wanted soooo badly for it to fill the void left by the end of 'the ww's' run. very, spotty. some poor casting choices. only an ep or two hit the mark (see: xmas episode).

don't get me wrong, it was still faaaar better than most of the dreck the nets give us. but it was way too smart of a show for most of america and failed to be entertaining enough to suit even most rabid 'the west wing'/sorkin fans.

personally, 'freaks and geeks' is the gold standard in this category when the topic is revived. 'men of a certain age's' much too short run has been the biggest disappointment for me since.

but 'men..' was the pet project for three established stars/actors. what made 'f & g' so extraordinary is the unparalleled foresight 'TEAM APATOW displayed. the casting of sooo many 'unknown' young stars is nothing short of extraordinary. as is the off-the-charts success in films apatow and co. have had since.

 

I used to love Voyagers! as a kid. Too bad the guy accidentally offed himself.

 

I need to do that just to have them (hell, that's half the reason I have so many Atari 2600 games ... just to have them). I'll always remember watching that opening scene for the first time in my dorm room as a sophomore where Wes Mandell goes off and sums up everything wrong the the TV broadcast audience today. I thought it was genius. Heck, I had just moved out of the extreme-conservative Bible Belt for the first time in my life and it actually inspired me to push the envelope with what I wrote in the papers.

And you know the funniest thing about that? I thought I was about to watch the 30 Rock premiere when Studio 60 came on. Glad I had my dates mixed up.

 

Let me be clear that I'm not ripping you for saying that, I actually completely agree, but that was why I think I liked it so much. It felt like a real take on what SNL would be like behind the scenes. I love good journalism movies, and Studio 60 was the closest thing I had found to one on TV. I just really enjoy fiction about the industry we work in.

 

I liked Studio 60, but after the West Wing - doing a weekly show just didn't seem all that important.
The episode about the "stolen" comedy bit? Yeesh.

 

Nobody's said Police Squad!? (The TV series that The Naked Gun movies are based on.) It only lasted 6 episodes before ABC cancelled it because they thought there were too many jokes and the audience couldn't keep up. Leslie Neilsen played Frank Drebin more as a straight guy while everyone else around him was off kilter. The special guest star of each episode died during the opening credits.

I found the entire series on DVD and it's comedy gold. I wouldn't mind trying to find Sledge Hammer, either. They intended the last episode of season one to be the series finale (L.A. got nuked) because they expected to get cancelled but ABC surprised them with a renewal. So the second season was set four years earlier. Then it got cancelled.

 

Have you always had that quote in your sig?

 

Sirs, Madames,

The Equalizer made it to syndication. Doesn't qualify.

M*A*S*H* ... wrong section. After M*A*S*H* sequel, qualifies.

YHS, etc

 

The opening credits were great, Abraham Lincoln shooting back at Booth, the title of the episode in print being different than the one the announcer gave, it being nothing but shootout and of course, Police Squad! In Color!