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Brilliant but cancelled: Why some great TV shows don't make it past the first season

by David Furritus

Created on: September 20, 2007

Some shows are doomed from the start. I'm not sure why, but I honestly believe that some networks don't like to take chances with shows and go out of their way to set them up for failure.

Some of my favorite shows that didn't make the cut:

"Strange Luck" (1995, Fox): A great show with an off-beat premise. It's about a photographer named Chance Harper. Chance has this amazing way of always falling into and out of weird situations often by the skin of his teeth and an odd series of events always end up bringing everything together at the end. Chance is no superhero, he's just really lucky. If he needs to pay for his lunch, he'll buy a lottery ticket and it will usually be for just the price of his lunch plus a pretty sweet tip. He'll jump out of a building to get a picture of a woman attempting suicide, take some pictures of her on the way down and land on an airbag - with a dislocated shoulder. It was an extremely different show that only lasted 17 episodes. Fox decide to put it on Friday nights at 9pm (the usual slot for shows that they don't like).

"Profit" (1996, Fox): Adrian Pasdar (of "Heroes") starred as Jim Profit, a corporate raider who was willing to do ANYTHING to get to the top of his company. He lied, cheated, and even murdered anyone that got in his way - and then, he would frame someone else that was in front of him. He was the perfect anti-hero. He had no likable qualities to speak of, but you really wanted to see how far he would go. Unfortunately, the show only had eight episodes and soon enough Fox canceled it.

"Firefly" (2002, Fox (again)): In a review it was called "The Most Canceled Show on TV". It had a great premise of a far future where everything isn't all wine and roses and the "civilization" that controls the Universe is anything but benevolent. The show follows that exploits of a renegade ship manned by refugees, veterans of the losing side of a civil war, high-classed call girls, and a man of the cloth. It had a lot of promise, but once again Fox decided to throw it into their "time slot of doom", Friday 9pm. Oddly enough, the show still inspired a highly successful feature film, "Serenity".

"The X-Files" (1993, Fox): Believe it or don't, this show was canceled after their freshman season. Fox had no intention of bringing it back. However, a massive letter-writing campaign convinced Fox to give it another shot. The show would go on to have eight more seasons, one movie (with a rumored second in pre-production), and ill fated spin-off:

"The

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