20 of the most epic failures in network science fiction TV

Blastr.com ^ | 09/21/10

[KevinDavis]

The new TV season starts in earnest this week, and as usual it brings with it the promise of all kinds of new sci-fi, fantasy and horror treats for us to watch. And all too soon it will also bring with it an inevitable round of cancelations as shows that seemed like they were just getting going get cut short when the ratings take a sudden downturn (or maybe a slow decline).

Before we fall in love with too many new darlings only to lose them too soon, we thought it was a good time to look back over some of the most promising new network shows in the last 10 years that also seemed fresh and young ... only to flame out spectacularly.

The list could go well past 20 of course, but all of these stood out in some way during their brief time in the sun, either because so many viewers tuned in at first that cancelation seemed impossible, or because creatively they seemed a cut above the average TV fare.

[wally_bert]

I vaguely remember that!

[pissant]

Couldn’t have been worse than Mork and Mindy

[BOBWADE]

Me too, The charachter named Rem had the electronic mcgiver-like thingy that could fix anything.

[chaosagent]

Primeval is coming back with a new bunch of episodes.

[njslim]

What about that Brit show UFO?

Girls in silver space suits with purple hair!

Maybe SyFi network can do a remake with better special
effects.....

[Junior_G]

Flashforward was cancelled??

Too bad, it was a really clever idea for a show.

Clever idea, but really unintelligent in the execution. I tried to like it but had to give up after 6 or 7 episodes.

[njslim]

What about that Brit show UFO?

Girls in silver space suits with purple hair!

Maybe SyFi network can do a remake with better special
effects.....

[latina4dubya]

Flash Forward was pretty good — the biggest mistake they made was when they did a “24”-like hiatus for three or four months, or whatever it was, and then expected the audience to come back and catch up. No way was that gonna happen.

and the same thing will probably happen to "V"

[wally_bert]

Any news on when?

[Nachum]

UFO? That show was just OK. I liked the futuristic hair do and fashions, but it got a little old after a while.

I wouldn’t mind a modern version though.

[Stonewall Jackson]

They kept delaying the episodes because of sports, so fans just got fed up with it.

I managed to catch about half of the shows during their original run and have since purchased the series on DVD, which I have loaned out to numerous friends who have all enjoyed the show.

[Captain Beyond]

I really enjoyed Firefly, Moonlight, Threshold, Invasion, and New Amsterdam. I hated to see them get canceled. It seems the majority of the public just wants more cop, lawyer, and doctor shows. Like we don't have enough them already but that is TV programming for you.

I wish channels like SciFi and Chiller would concentrate on new shows and have a SciFi 2 and Chiller 2 for showing the older show reruns for the fans of them.

[RegulatorCountry]

I guess they were going for a sort of Space Odyssey thing with all the slowness and dead air but it just didn’t work. I watched it, I was a teenager, lol. It was bad, I agree. Not bad enough to be good bad, just bad. I might recall it with more amusement if I’d noticed the arms waving the grass. It’s the sort of show where you find yourself looking for the wires on the obviously miniature spacecraft that sort of wobble.

[Captain Beyond]

I forgot to add Odyssey 5, Farscape, and a show called Prey. Those were really good shows. To bad they got canceled. Farscape and Odyssey 5 had some really good writing going on.

[BuffaloJack]

Sci-Fi needs good writing to be good. No amount of special effects can svea show poorly written or poorly acted; on the other hand, a well written show can exist and thrive with even the lamest effects. The original Doctor Who had superb writing and good acting, the effects were awful and the show thrived.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Farscape was on too long to call it an ‘epic failure’.

[Free Vulcan]

I liked Shatner’s Tekwar.

[GeronL]

I remember “Misfits of Science”, which didn’t even last a season and another show, I can’t remember the title... “Doing Time on Planet Earth” maybe, or something like that.

There have been a lot of bad scifi shows on the last 30 or so years

[GeronL]

I loved Misfits of Science.. a mid-season replacement show that didn’t last very long at all....

Courtney Cox was actually kind of cute then

[Liberty Valance]

Stephen King will guest star in an episode of the television drama Sons of Anarchy today after being lured by the offer of riding a Harley-Davidson.

The bestselling author plays a character named Bachman – King wrote a number of his horror novels under the pen name Richard Bachman – who is described in the show's official announcement as "highly skilled in an unusual profession". The television series, about an outlaw motorcycle club in the fictional town of Charming, California, has just started its third season in the US (King appears in the third episode) and is currently showing its second series in the UK