Every television fan will tell you that there is an inherent risk involved in loving a television series. That risk is that you’ll get attached to a new show only for it to end way too soon, cancelled by the network for one reason or another and even if the series is given a proper conclusion, if it’s departing before its time it’s still something that stings. The cancellation risk is even higher for fans of sci-fi television which often are snatched away before their time. Sometimes, it happens with such frequency that as a viewer one might feel like they’re bringing a curse upon a these could-be sci-fi greats as they get hooked and then the shows are simply gone.
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That sort of loss—the exciting series that is snatched away way too soon—is one that can sting even years later. It’s what leaves viewers with shows they will always bring up when they talk about what might have been and the cancellations of which might even make them wary to get invested in other shows again until they have several seasons under their belts or have already run their course and can be binged. (I’m talking about myself here.) With that in mind, here are 5 sci-fi series from the 2000s that fall into that “gone too soon” category. These are the shows that were cancelled way too soon, ranked by just how much that cancellation hurt. Just a note before I open up old wounds and bring the pain, however: Firefly isn’t on this list. Instead, this is a list of maybe lesser-known cancellation tragedies we’re still upset about.
5) Threshold
Threshold is a series that not only was its cancellation a sore spot, but the fact that American audiences didn’t even get to see the final four episodes was just insult to injury (those episodes were aired in the UK and later showed up on DVD but still.) Debuting on CBS in 2005, Threshold had a solid cast consisting of Carla Gugino, Brian Van Hold, Brent Spiner, Rob Benedict, Peter Dinklage, and Charles S. Dutton and followed Gugino’s Dr. Molly Caffrey, a government crisis management consultant responsible for having contingency plans for just about every possible disaster you can imagine, including one called Threshold that dealt with alien first contact. It’s all about simply being prepared until one night, the aliens arrive and Threshold is activated.
As alien invasion stories go, Threshold was really cool. Not only did the series have some very dynamic and interesting characters, but the plan the aliens have to rewrite the DNA of the human race to turn us into aliens and take over was really original. The series also explored the emotional impact of not just the invasion but of the responsibility Caffrey is saddled with. The show initially got a Friday slot that was swapped out for a Tuesday slot, but that put it up against Law & Order: SVU and well, that killed it. The show was also a more serialized series with each episode being complete and without cliffhangers which made it a little unusual. What makes this one hurt so much is that there was a long-range plan for the series to go all the way with an invasion and an alien regime.
4) Kyle XY
Airing on ABC Family (now Freeform), Kyle XY ran for three seasons between 2006 and 2006 and centered around a teen boy who wakes up naked in a forest near Seattle suffering from amnesia and weirdly having no belly button. He’s taken in by a family, given the name of Kyle and starts to try to figure out who he is. It was a really neat series and was actually very popular. The series was the network’s highest rated original series for two years (a spot it lost to The Secret Life of the American Teenager) and even led to it getting two novels based on the series and an online alternate reality game during the first season. While I would say that is so mid-2000s for you, it’s also really cool.
So, what happened? While the third season was admittedly a bit less strong than the first two, it was still goo. Unfortunately, the dip in ratings was enough for ABC Family to justify ending things, especially as the network was shifting its priorities to programming more like the aforementioned The Secret Life of the American Teenager and Greek. We’re still not happy.
3) Jericho
The only reason Jericho is on the middle of this list and not closer to the top is that we did get a slight reprieve from the pain of cancellation with this one only to have it happen for a second time. Jericho might be one of the most famous instances of a television show cancellation in recent history. Starring Skeet Ulrich, Jericho debuted in 2006 on CBS with a really great premise: the series centers on the folks in Jericho, Kansas in the aftermath of a nuclear attack that destroys 23 cities in the United States.
What made Jericho special is that it had layers. You had the nuclear apocalypse storyline with the US being attacked (that opening with a mushroom cloud over Denver is chilling). You had the slow horror of it becoming evident just how widespread and deliberate the situation is. You had a survival story that was rooted in everyday things and not just nuclear horror. You even had mystery as to who certain people really were and what role they may have had in the attack as well as questions of what really was left of the government. The series was cancelled after just one season and while fans rallied and managed to get the series renewed, the second season (which laid the framework for a civil war) ended up being the last. That’s two cancellations, folks, and we still don’t really know how it all plays out (there are technically comics for “Season 3” and “Season 4” but it’s not the same.)
2) FlashForward
If you have ever read any of my lists about television shows that were cancelled too soon or were somehow underrated, seeing FlashForward on here is not a surprise. FlashForward debuted in 2009, an adaptation of the novel of the same name that centered around a mysterious global event in which everyone on Earth blacked out for two minutes, during which they saw six months into the future. To figure out what happened and what it means, a team of FBI agents come together to investigate. It was high concept and high stakes and the first season ended perfectly with the flashforward day arriving, most of the glimpses coming true, and another blackout happening.
The series was cancelled before the finale actually aired so at least we knew going into the final episodes that things were ending, but that didn’t make it any easier. There was so much for the series to explore and even more mysteries to unpack. Ultimately, the series was a victim of deteriorating ratings—which may have been a result of a lengthy midseason hiatus due to the Winter Olympics. The gap in episodes destroyed it’s momentum and it never got it back. And we’re still mad about it.
1) Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
While the Terminator movie franchise wasn’t in the best place after Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Fox’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was a really great series and it gave the franchise a new and exciting way to dig into the Terminator mythos and lore. The series starred Lena Headey as Sarah and was set post Terminator 2: Judgment Day, following Sarah and her son John (Thomas Dekker) figuring out how to prevent the future. Of course, they’re pursued the entire time, both by Terminators from the future and the FBI. Along the way, the team up with a Terminator programmed to defend them, Cameron (Summer Glau).
The series gave the Terminator franchise fresh perspective and helped expand its world and it was a very welcome addition to the iconic world. It remains one of the best television shows to be based on a movie, but it only got two seasons. The series was, to an extent, a victim of the Writers Guild of America strike of 2007-2008 which saw the series original episode order reduced, but it was ultimately low viewership that killed it. If we could go back in time we’d prevent that from happening.
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