TV programs that should have survived

[Fred588]

Dr Who is, now, pretty widely recognized as a gold mine, with platinum in the spoil, for the BBC. Its history, however, seems to show that it has survived in spite of more than one effort by BBC powers. For me, this leads to the thought that there may have been others shows (not necessarily on BBC) that SHOULD have survived, longer than they did, at least, but didn't.

This thread is just to suggest the topic of shows that should have survived but didn't, and why. By why I mean why they should have survived, not why they didn't.

[Mynock]

Two shows I loved as a kid that immediately come to mind:
Seaquest DSV
Earth 2
Both of these had great promise but were ruined by bad writing and then weird/confusing/just plain ridiculous plots after a great first season.

Dinosaurs (the NBC sitcom).
Looking back this one was actually like an early live action version Family Guy, in that the writers were great at weaving topical humor into a weird yet for some reason believable "what if dinosaurs were people" universe.
Could've gone on forever, instead the last episode was super morbid and left the family freezing to death in their home following an asteroid strike lol.

[Palinov Jensen]

Persons Unknown (NBC, 2010)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1333050/

Persons Unknown should have survived for the simple fact that, from the get go, NBC promised viewer week after week that "All Will Be Revealed" and our questions will be answered at the end of the series. The series was canceled and they failed to deliver, which left a lot of viewers (including myself) frustrated and angry. Not to mention the show ended on a major cliffhanger. NBC had a good thing going with Persons Unknown, but for whatever reason, they decided to cancel the series. The show, in my opinion, was unique for it's time.

[Tim Kelly]

How about the BBC's "Casanova"? The very first scene showed the very first person to be shown naked on TV; Zienia Merton, who went on to appear in "Space 1999" as the little girl who spent every episode screaming her head off! her nipples were the first to be seen on the Beeb; unfortunately that scene can't ever, EVER be seen on tv or video again, because the character she was playing was supposedly only 15 (the legal age of consent in UK is 16, but the minimum age at which one can be filmed or photographed naked in UK is 18) even though the lady herself was 25 at the time;also she is half-Burmese, which enabled her to play all kinds of exotic nationalities; and like Lodoski's pinays, she's always been a bit older, and a lot tougher, than she looks.

[MadMax359]

one of the funniest, sharpest shows i miss is "Better Off Ted"; the fake commercials were amazing, the cast was excellent... one of those shows that just never got the viewers

[Chimerix]

Firefly.

[Palinov Jensen]

Firefly.

I knew you were going to say FireFly! I knew it! lol!

[BSink42]

Firefly.

I knew you were going to say FireFly! I knew it! lol!

It was probably inevitable that somebody was going to say it.

Mine is another Whedon show, Dollhouse. Yeah, it got two seasons, but I still thing Fox cut the plug too soon before it really had a chance to really find it's footing. It makes me wonder what would have happened if Netflix and Amazon had been deep in the original series game at the time it was cancelled (Netflix's breakout hit House of Cards premiered only three years after Dollhouse ended).

[MadMax359]

Mine is another Whedon show, Dollhouse. Yeah, it got two seasons, but I still thing Fox cut the plug too soon before it really had a chance to really find it's footing. It makes me wonder what would have happened if Netflix and Amazon had been deep in the original series game at the time it was cancelled (Netflix's breakout hit House of Cards premiered only three years after Dollhouse ended).

i liked Dollhouse a lot... that was only two seasons? it seems like more, but maybe that's because the finale did bring a kind of resolution

[BogDog]

"Enterprise"
(Later "Star Trek: Enterprise")

It took a couple of seasons before it got really good, but then so did TNG.