Frequent TV Cancellations Altering Viewing Behavior (1 Viewer)

[jayembee]

What about it? I watched that show and liked it. I would have liked more, but I don't regret watching it for a second. Even if I had known going in that it would end after a single season, I would still have watched it because I got a lot of enjoyment from the episodes we did get.

I think the ultimate poster child for this is Firefly. Its potential for success was sabotaged in several different ways by Fox, but I'm glad that I watched it straight through, beginning to end, and have no regrets having done so. It maybe have been given a resolution of sorts by the film Serenity, but my lack of regrets watching the show was solidified before there was ever a thought about releasing the film.

And, yes, I enjoyed Terra Nova, as well. And The Last Ship, Emergence, Salvation, Invasion, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, New Amsterdam (the one with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, not the recent medical show) and a host of others.

Aside from Firefly, the one cancellation that hurt the most was the Canadian/South African SF series Charlie Jade. But I still loved watching it, and am glad I have it on DVD. Oh, and more recently, there was Debris.

I don't have any qualms about watching a new show that looks interesting to me, despite the chances that it might be cancelled. I do think differently if it's something that's been completed and shown and is really most sincerely dead. My wife and I kept putting off watching the second season of Raised by Wolves. Once HBOMax announced that the series wouldn't be coming back for a third season, and I found out that the storyline wasn't wrapped up, we decided to just let it lie, and go onto something else. We're still considering 1899, though, as soon as we finish Dark.

 

[jayembee]

One of my favorite one and done series was Invasion, which ended on a huge cliffhanger. I remember how the network kept moving the show around and taking huge breaks between episodes, I never could keep up with when and where the show would be broadcast. Some of my favorite actors spent time there: William Fitchner, Evan Peters, Veronica Cartright, Elizabeth Moss. What a shame. Network execs are a sad bunch.

Came out the same season as CBS' Threshold, a similar invasion-type series, which didn't even get to finish the whole year with a few episodes unaired (Syfy/Sci-Fi later aired all the episodes filmed).

And there was a third similar one the same season on NBC: Surface.