23 Years Ago, Showtime Canceled a Cult Sci-Fi Series & Created a Criminal Cliffhanger That Will Never be Resolved

The sci-fi genre of TV is filled with examples of shows that were yanked from the airwaves before their time, but some of those cases hurt more than others. Even if a series didn’t have the largest fandom, those who tuned in tended to be very passionate about it. Those kinds of fans got hit the hardest whenever a show gets cancelled without warning, leaving viewers with unresolved curiosity.

It was 23 years ago that Showtime pulled one of the most egregious moves, cancelling a cult-hit sci-fi series in its first season (19 episodes), and leaving fans dangling on one of the biggest cliffhangers possible. It was never resolved, and fans have been left wondering what could’ve been ever since.

Showtime’s 2000s Sci-Fi Time Travel Series Was Ahead of Its Time

On June 21, 2002, Showtime premiered the Canadian sci-fi series Odyssey 5. The show follows five astronauts who are taking a flight aboard the space shuttle Odyssey when they witness the Earth implode. The group is saved by an alien force which warps them back in time five years, where they must relive their lives over again. With a ticking doomsday clock dangling overhead, the five astronauts must investigate and try to prevent the apocalyptic event, while also having to contend with the demands of their own lives and the decisions they did or did not make.

The show had an impressive cast, led by Robocop star Peter Weller as Chuck Taggart, the commander of the Odyssey. Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries actor Sebastian Roché played Nobel Prize-winning geneticist and bad boy Kurt Mendel, while Christopher Gorham (Ugly Betty, Covert Affairs) played young astronaut (and Taggart’s son), Neil. Leslie Silva (Shades of Blue) played Sarah Forbes, a reporter who had tagged along with the Odyssey mission, while Tamara Marie Watson (CSI: Miami, NCIS) played Angela Perry, the one astronaut who was knocked out during Earth’s destruction, and had the jarring experience of waking up in the past.

Odyssey 5 was a combination of deep character study and some of the headiest sci-fi tropes around (god-like alien powers, time travel and causality, wrapped around a mystery that had massive potential for big twists and turns. One look at Apple TV and its lineup of sci-fi series like For All Mankind or Dark Matter, and it’s hard not to wonder if Odyssey 5 was just unlucky to come out in the early 2000s, when genres like sci-fi were still breaking through to the mainstream. Ironically, series creator Manny Coto would go on to have a great career writing for major TV shows (The Outer Limits, Star Trek: Enterprise, 24, Dexter, The Exorcist, American Horror Story). However, he never would get the opportunity to revisit Odyssey 5 (as he had openly stated he wished to) before he died in 2023.

The Odyssey 5 Finale Setup A Juicy Next Chapter

SPOILERS The show’s cliffhanger upped the ante by revealing that a secret faction of NASA, which the astronauts thought caused Earth’s destruction, was actually hunting the time-displaced Odyssey crew, thinking they were responsible for the apocalypse. For those who watched Odyssey 5, the cliffhanger was a major twist in the story that opened big new doors for Season 2. Unfortunately, Showtime cancelled the series before it could ever be resolved.

Odyssey 5 can be streamed on Tubi. Discuss sci-fi and TV with us on the ComicBook Forum!