Cancelling a TV show is easy. Persuading fans to let it die is another thing entirely.

Great TV shows can be like relationships, becoming part of our lives and proving tough to let go. It doesn’t matter whether a show is a stone-cold classic, if isn’t popular enough, or costs too much, the axe will inevitably come crashing down.

When stories are suddenly cut short, it can leave beloved characters torturously or tantalisingly in limbo.

We look at the TV programmes whose premature cancellations felt particularly unjust, the ones that refused to be forgotten, and those that, with the help of fans’ pester power, have risen again.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Twin Peaks changed the face of television, with creators David Lynch and Mark Frost throwing off the shackles of conventional wisdom with their beautiful and beastly vision of what TV could be. Premiering in 1990, the show told the story of a small town and its quirky townsfolk, rocked by the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). It was so much more than a conventional whodunit, incorporating elements from the soap opera to the supernatural, with Lee and Kyle MacLachlan (playing FBI special agent Dale Cooper) giving iconic turns.

Twin Peaks was an instant hit, becoming ‘water cooler’ television, and scoring broadcaster ABC its highest ratings in four years in its prime timeslot. There was pressure from the network to quickly unmask the killer after the show was renewed, although Lynch had no interest in doing this at all. After the reveal, viewers lost interest, while Lynch and Frost took time off during the lengthy sophomore season, leading to a decline in quality. Following a couple of hiatuses, it was cancelled in 1991 by ABC, citing dwindling ratings and high costs.

Sinister prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me was released a year later in 1992 and though there was little love for it at the time, it has since been reappraised. A proposed spin-off focusing on Sherilyn Fenn’s character Audrey Horne evolved into unrelated 2001 movie Mulholland Drive, with Lynch telling Empire that year that Twin Peaks was as “dead as a doornail”.

However, in 2017, more than 25 years after its final episode aired, the show was revived for a third and final season, billed as Twin Peaks: The Return. Now the creators of a TV classic, Lynch and Frost were gifted greater artistic freedom by new network Showtime. After some wrangling, the budget was fixed but the amount of episodes remained flexible (in the end it ran to 18), with the pair pushing their wonderful weirdness even further.

She’s become a critical darling for her roles in sitcoms The Good Place and Nobody Wants This but, back in 2004, Kristen Bell got her big break in the titular role of teen mystery series Veronica Mars. Created by Rob Thomas, it was like Buffy but with private investigators, with Amanda Seyfried, Krysten Ritter and Tessa Thompson also appearing in early roles.

This smart and sassy show aired on UPN and its successor The CW and won no shortage of praise. Despite changing its format in the third season to focus on more quickly resolved mysteries to give new viewers entry points, Veronica Mars was sadly unable to attract the numbers it needed, and was put on hiatus part way through that season, before being cancelled.

And yet its story was far from over. After some trouble getting it off the ground through conventional channels, in 2013 Bell and Thomas launched a Kickstarter fundraiser to get a movie made. They set their goal at $2 million, reaching that in just 10 hours and breaking Kickstarter records. Eventually they raised more than $5.7 million, with the film released in cinemas a year later. Despite not exactly setting the box office alight (it actually made a loss), the saga had shown continuing enthusiasm for the series, and Hulu released an eight-episode fourth season in 2019 that was largely admired but ended on a devastating and divisive note.

One of television’s greatest-ever depictions of teenage turmoil, as well as being hugely influential, My So-Called Life was crushingly short-lived. The series was created by Winnie Holzman (who later scripted the smash-hit stage musical Wicked) and launched the careers of Claire Danes and Jared Leto. It was critically lauded and Danes would win a Golden Globe for her portrayal of 15-year-old Angela Chase.

Holzman told Variety in 2015 that the network, ABC, was conflicted about the show the entire time. Unsure about who it was aimed at, it took My So-Called Life off the air before the season was through, due to underwhelming audience numbers. However, as Holzman recalls, she was never micromanaged and there were few creative constraints, which allowed for a bold approach to story and character, including the prominent, trailblazing inclusion of Angela’s queer, mixed-race, eyeliner-sporting bestie Rickie (played by Wilson Cruz).

As a result of such boundary-breaking, My So-Called Life left a significant legacy, despite its short time on screen (it lasted just 19 episodes). The way it challenged stereotypes and earnestly tackled issues stood in stark contrast to the glossy, jokey or sanitised teen shows of the time – like Beverley Hills, 90210 or Blossom – with its bracingly honest portrayal of adolescence setting the standard for years to come.

Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000)

“Everything I’ve done, in a way, is revenge for the people who cancelled Freaks and Geeks,” Judd Apatow told the Paley Center for Media in 2014. “It’s really demented, but it’s just like: you were wrong about that person, and that person, and that person.” To be fair, it’s hard to know what NBC execs were thinking when they prematurely pulled the plug on a show that introduced the likes of Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Linda Cardellini, James Franco and Busy Philipps to the world.

The baby of Paul Feig (who would go on to direct Bridesmaids) and executive produced by Apatow, Freaks and Geeks was set in a Michigan high school and aired from 1999 to 2000. Focusing on its students’ calamitous attempts to fit in and with many of its stories drawn from its writers’ own humiliating experiences, the show was axed with three of its 18 episodes still to go.

Freaks and Geeks had struggled to gain much of an audience after being lumbered with a tough Saturday night time slot and subjected to erratic scheduling. There was a sense, too, that the network was never really rooting for these lovable outsiders, with one of the show’s writers, Gabe Sachs, telling The Guardian in 2009: “They wanted James Franco to take off his shirt, Britney Spears to make a guest appearance, and everyone to actually be cool."

It’s tough not to feel conflicted about the work of Joss Whedon, given the problematic allegations that have emerged from his productions. But space western Firefly holds a special place in the hearts of many, as a show with abundant swagger and intricate world-building, one that burned incredibly brightly, before being quickly snuffed out.

Created by Whedon, overseen by showrunner Tim Minear and featuring a cast led by Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres and Morena Baccarin, it takes place far in the future, after the arrival of humans in a new star system, and follows the adventures of the ragtag crew of spaceship Serenity. Firefly made its debut on Fox in 2002 but was cancelled part-way through its 14 episode run, after just 11 instalments, leaving the remaining three episodes unaired. Contributing to its demise, Fox aired several episodes out of order, including, bizarrely, the double pilot, which had set the stage regarding the story and characters.

Firefly’s vocal fanbase kept hopes for a continuation alive. Although they were unable to find a network to pick up the show, the series was released on DVD in 2003 in its entirety. Its popularity persuaded Universal to produce a follow-up theatrical feature, 2005’s Serenity, which added Chiwetel Ejiofor to the mix. It was warmly welcomed but financially unsuccessful. Nevertheless, comics and tabletop role-playing games have kept the franchise alive, while Fillion revealed at Awesome Con earlier this year that an animated series is in advanced development, with his co-stars also expected to reprise their roles.

Dysfunctional families are ten-a-penny in the sitcom world, but few are quite so divine as the Bluths, a riches-to-rags brood of delusional incompetents, haplessly held together by sensible adult son Michael (brilliantly played by Jason Bateman). Premiering on Fox in late 2003, Arrested Development was created by Mitchell Hurwitz and unmistakably narrated by producer Ron Howard, with its first three seasons giving us some of the most effervescently eccentric and gag-rich comedy ever, influencing the likes of 30 Rock and Community.

However, despite winning six Emmys and critical adoration, ratings were low and they only got lower, with Fox reducing the number of episodes each season and repeatedly changing the show’s time slot, before arresting its own development in 2006, by cancelling it after three seasons.

Fans were delighted when the show was eventually picked back up by Netflix, with a fourth season airing in 2013 which changed up the much-loved format, with each episode focusing on a different character (partly because of the challenge of getting the now in-demand cast back together). As funny as it still was, the revival missed the original’s ensemble feel and cast’s sparkling chemistry. A (presumably) final fifth season followed in 2018 and 2019, that was split into two parts. It reunited the gang in more satisfying style, but couldn’t mask the scent of a show past its best.

Running from 2004 to 2006, HBO’s Deadwood is quite simply one of the greatest television shows of all time. Set in the titular South Dakotan city in the 1870s, this rich, characterful and artistically ambitious project breathed life into some legendary historical figures, spun swearing into pure poetry, and created female characters that were the equals of their iconic male counterparts, with Timothy Olyphant, Ian McShane, John Hawkes, Molly Parker, Paula Malcomson and Robin Weigert amongst the stacked cast.

Nominated for 28 Emmys during its run and winning eight, Deadwood attracted considerable acclaim for creator and showrunner David Milch (NYPD Blue) and his collaborators. However, in 2006, the show was unceremoniously cancelled ahead of the release of season 3, when HBO and its financial partners Paramount couldn’t agree on new terms, with declining ratings and huge production costs (estimated at $4.5m an episode) contributing factors.

HBO had been reluctant to pull the plug, so had offered Milch a shorter six-episode final season, which he turned down. To placate angry fans, it then announced a pair of two-hour TV movies, which never came to pass, with McShane confirming in 2007 that the sets were due to be dismantled. Eventually, in 2018, the network officially greenlit a Deadwood movie, set a decade after the end of season 3, and aptly announced in its advertising with the words: “Welcome the f**k back.” It aired to a rapturous reception on HBO in 2019, finally giving fans much longed for closure.

Turning thorny history into salacious, bloodthirsty and superbly acted drama, Rome was a co-production between HBO and the BBC. Created by John Milius, William J MacDonald and Bruno Heller, it debuted in 2005 to strong audience figures, with a second season announced only a few episodes into the airing of the first.

Given the meatiness of the material – which focused on the likes of Julius Caesar (Ciarán Hinds), Mark Antony (James Purefoy), Brutus (Tobias Menzies) and Polly Walker’s deliciously wicked Atia of the Julii – the series was blessed with narrative gold. Its creators committed to a high level of realism, with the show’s aesthetic distinguishing it from many other screen depictions of the era, and significant quantities of sex and death also a key part of its appeal.

Rome was, however, notoriously expensive, costing more than $100 million for the first, 12-episode season. It was shot in the titular city and boasted filmic production values, as ancient Rome was elaborately recreated in Cinecittà Studios. Although thrillingly ambitious (and the winner of seven Emmys), the outlay was hard to justify once ratings declined, and HBO announced in 2006 that the second season would be its last. Heller, who was part way through writing it, quickly worked in elements from the planned third and fourth seasons, which, as he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2008, “accounts for the blazing speed we go through history near the end.” A movie was mooted around this time, but failed to materialise.

Originally intended as a spin-off from Bryan Fuller’s prematurely curtailed 2003-4 show Dead Like Me (which itself lasted just two seasons), Pushing Daisies introduced us to supernaturally gifted pie-maker Ned (Lee Pace), who can bring the dead back to life with unfortunate consequences, and does just that when his childhood crush, Chuck (Anna Friel), is murdered. This bright and bonkers fairytale combined comedy and crime drama with rapid-fire dialogue, and made its debut on ABC in 2007.

The show received a whopping 17 Emmy nominations during its two-season run, winning Barry Sonnenfeld an outstanding directing award and the effervescent Kristin Chenoweth a gong for supporting actress. It would make no difference, with falling ratings in the second season resulting in cancellation and ABC taking it off the air with three episodes to go.

Following the chop, there was talk of a mini-series, movie or musical. A ‘third season’ comic book series designed to tie up loose ends looked pretty likely, although this too never came to pass, due to the loss of its publisher, DC Comics’ WildStorm imprint, with Fuller only able to share a single, uncoloured page.

Assembling an exceptional cast for a confronting, authentic and propulsive look at policing Los Angeles, Southland is all-timer television, right up there with the likes of The Wire. Yet, despite eventually clawing its way to five seasons, it never benefited from that show’s support. The brainchild of Ann Biderman (a writer on NYPD Blue, who would go on to create Ray Donovan), Southland starred Regina King, Ben McKenzie, Michael Cudlitz and Shawn Hatosy.

Disregarding its critical reception and potential, two weeks before the second season was due to air, the show was cancelled by NBC. Fortunately, it was quickly picked up by cable channel TNT, which aired the six completed second season episodes. It then commissioned a ten-episode third season, with significant budget cuts and cast reductions, signing off on a fourth and fifth season, before the plug was pulled yet again. In 2013, Cudlitz, who played one of Southland’s most compelling and complicated characters, the gay cop John Cooper, was asked by IndieWire which aspect of the show he was most proud of, telling them: “We stayed true to the grittiness and the rawness of it right to the very end.”

The cursed Bryan Fuller lost another show to the network’s axe in 2015, when the magisterially macabre Hannibal was killed off in its prime. Stepping into the seemingly unfillable shoes of Anthony Hopkins, Scandinavian sensation Mads Mikkelsen took on the role of sophisticated serial killer Dr Hannibal Lecter, in a prequel series which first aired on NBC in 2013.

Taking artistic inspiration from cinematic icons David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, David Cronenberg and Dario Argento, Fuller initially planned a seven-season arc, with three series of original material set to be followed by adaptations of the Thomas Harris novels Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal, before ending on an original resolution. In the end, only three would be made, focusing on the dynamic between Lecter and FBI profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy), and incorporating elements of Harris’s novels earlier than planned.

One of the show’s executive producers, Martha De Laurentiis, told Yahoo in 2016 that online piracy was responsible for the show’s cancellation, with Hannibal the fifth most illegally downloaded show of 2013. Fuller held talks with Netflix in 2015, who couldn’t take the series on due to an existing deal with Amazon over streaming rights, while Amazon wanted a rapid turnaround in order to pick it up themselves. Fuller needed more time to work on scripts and was exploring a possible feature. Although nothing has emerged yet, the show’s loyal and strong-stomached fanbase are evidently ravenous for more. Fuller discussed a revival as late as last year, telling The Horror Queers podcast: “Everybody wants to return.” Watch this space.

Given the immense pressure to perform and swiftly justify an investment, it’s incredibly tough to make groundbreaking TV, and Sense8 was way more ambitious than most. This collaboration between siblings Lana and Lilly Wachowski (best known for the Matrix film series) and J Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5) first hit Netflix in 2015, dropping its audience into the middle of a mystery. It told the globe-spanning story of eight strangers – known as sensates – who discover they are mentally and emotionally entwined, exploring the idea of empathy across difference and technological connections.

The show was shot on location around the world, hiking the costs, while five years’ worth of stories were mapped out at the outset. When Sense8 was cancelled after just two seasons, ending on a cliffhanger no less, fans fought back, with online petitions and social media pressure. Soon after, Lana posted a letter announcing a two-hour 2018 special, offering devotees some closure, while simultaneously getting their hopes up that this might not truly be the end.

Sitting down with Jerry Seinfeld at the Produced By Conference in 2017, Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos addressed the controversy around Sense8’s demise. “It broke all kinds of new ground, being a show rooted in concepts of gender and identity,” he admitted, before going on to explain: “The audience was very passionate but just not large enough to support the economics of something that big, even on our platform.”

The OA (2016-2019)

The brainchild of regular collaborators Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij (known for the acclaimed indie films Sound of My Voice and The East), The OA follows a formerly blind woman (played by Marling) who, after going missing, re-emerges seven years later with her sight restored and scars on her back. It debuted on Netflix in 2016, with a second season released in 2019. Although the first instalment polarised critics, attracting some unflattering comparisons to Stranger Things, the more satisfying second season won significant admiration (it boasts a 92% Rotten Tomatoes score).

Unfortunately, in 2019 the show was cancelled, with the final episode really leaving fans hanging. As is so often true, it all came down to viewership versus cost, with an insider telling TheWrap that The OA was a “big creative swing” for Netflix – one that the streamer didn’t feel was paying off. The fans went wild on social media, even raising funds for a digital billboard in Times Square, while one went on hunger strike outside Netflix’s LA HQ, with Marling and Batmanglij visiting her.

The show has since featured in various best of the decade and 21st century lists (placing an impressive ninth on Empire’s 100 Best TV Shows of All Time in 2021), while its creators went on to produce the acclaimed miniseries A Murder at the End of the World for FX on Hulu in 2023. In 2025, one of The OA’s stars, Jason Isaacs, appeared on WABC’s Live with Kelly & Mark, where he insisted that The OA is “not over”, going on to say that, having spoken to Marling and Batmanglij, the trio were determined to do “whatever it takes”, adding: “We’re just not going to let it go.”

“Pandemic-wise I had a couple of career disappointments that in the global scheme of things don’t matter of all,” actress Betty Gilpin told Collider in 2021, reflecting on the cancellation of her beloved GLOW, going on to joke: “When an actress cries in a forest, does anyone hear?”

Gilpin is clearly as resilient in real life as those Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling were in the titular Netflix show, which ran for three seasons from 2017-2019, having been imagined into existence by Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch. Set in the 1980s and blending comedy, drama and back-combed hair, GLOW starred Gilpin, Alison Brie, Sydelle Noel and Marc Maron, and dealt with the success, sexism and solidarity experienced by wrestlers on the female professional circuit.

It was initially renewed for a fourth and final run, but production was halted in early 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the first episode had been shot, Netflix cancelled the show later that year due to the hike in costs and the difficulty of managing an on-set outbreak because of the wrestling theme. Brie told Decider in 2022 that the cancellation was “the great heartbreak of my career”, with Gilpin remaining defiant: “I think even though we got cancelled, it’s like, yeah, we still did it though.”

Bringing together the formidably charismatic trio of Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany and Anna Torv, with triple Academy Award nominee David Fincher a regular director and executive producer, Mindhunter was the classiest of crime dramas. Joe Penhall and his fellow writers dug deep into the criminal brain as they focused on the FBI’s Behavioural Science Unit in the late '70s and early '80s, giving a fictional spin to some fascinating true-crime material (it’s based on a book by pioneering criminal profiler and retired FBI agent John E Douglas, which was given to Fincher by the show’s executive producer, Charlize Theron).

Mindhunter had all the makings of a hit. It was renewed for a second season by Netflix before the first had even debuted, while the critics lapped it up, praising its cinematic visuals and psychological depth. Although McCallany suggested that Fincher had five seasons planned, development of a third was paused in 2019 to allow the director to finish his movie Mank. It was a delay that became indefinite, with Fincher admitting to Variety that he “needed some time away”, after the demands of producing the second season (Fincher ended up overseeing things after the showrunner was reportedly fired and eight of the scripts were binned).

Things sounded pretty final when Fincher told Le Journal du Dimanche in 2023, “I'm very proud of the first two seasons. But it's a very expensive show and, in the eyes of Netflix, we didn't attract enough of an audience to justify such an investment.” However, just when we thought it was absolutely over, McCallany revived hope, telling ScreenRant last year that he had met with Fincher and there’s “just a chance” that the show may come back in the form of a trio of movies. We will see…

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