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Some pretty good shows have fell by the wayside because they were a bit quirky  or too intelligent for the masses, while some real crap stays on the air for years. Here are a  couple or so that I really liked but they didn't get their chance.

The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne  - What if all that stuff he wrote about really happened? A really cool show  especially if you like steam punk technology.  The crew from  Around the World  in 80 Days (Phileas Fogg and Passepartout) Phileas' cousin Rebecca (a British secret agent with some pretty dangerous under wear)  and of course Jules Verne  battle  the League of  Darkness which is headed by Count  Gregory  (a 400 year old disembodied head  with a steam powered robotic body).  

This was the first series to be shot using digital HDTV cameras.  They rented a train engine repair shed in Montreal and built all their sets including a street in Paris.  SciFi in their infinite wisdom starting moving  it around away from it's original time slot and then cancelled it.

Briscoe County Jr.  - What can you say about anything starring  "The Bruce" Campbell.  A science fiction western was too much for  some folks I guess.


The Chronicle - Another series killed by SciFi.  What if everything  in the tabloids was true?  According to the  mysterious editor  of the  Chronicle they are, they just have to  hoked up so  the public won't believe it , because we're not ready for the truth.   Any show that once featured an STA (Sexually Transmitted Alien) that runs amuck at a swingers convention has greatness written all over it.

Firefly  - Fox television , what else  do I have to say ?  It is being resurrected as a movie.

Harsh Realm -  See Firefly.

I strongly agree with firefly and Brisco County.

The show I wish was still being made even if it was just to be released on DVD is The Tick

Millenium was a TV show i wished I had seen more of.  I caught a few of the repeats on The FX network. It was pretty good. The downside was that FX aired it at 2am or something insane like that. I taped a few here and there, but don't have a complete season.

And then there's The Lone Gunmen which when it came on in it's original Fox friday night lineup I knew it wasn't going to last. So I taped about half of them.  I hope they put out a Box Set of that, but I doubt it since the pilot episode plot centered around an airplane flying in the world trade center.

.  .  .  .  Does "Fast Food Films" count?  I'll get punched for it but "Homeboys from Outer Space" was really good.  "Get a Life" was great (ever eat E.T.?).  Speaking of "don't call me Ash," what about "Jack of All Trades," comedy of American in Britain during the Revolutionary war (If I remember correctly).  "Cosmic Slop," any show that opens with George Clinton's head surrounded by tye dye (I think?) has potential, and it did.  Didn't Fox also have "Brimstone," always thought it might be cool, but too late to catch any of the eps.
.  .  .  .  Seeing as how "Family Guy" is revived only because of DVD sales, maybe the cultishness (-amahoositabob) may help shows that are cancelled, if they get DVD releases early on after cancellation?

>The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne

I could never get into that one. The first episode I watched started out with them on some mission, but then they go back in time and get involved in something else, then come back to the future and move onto something else.

>Briscoe County Jr.

Liked this one.

>The Chronicle

I liked this one too, even though I didn't think it was that great.

>Firefly

I could tell Firefly wasn't going to last from the minute I read the first description of it. Even though I liked the show a lot, I can't believe that someone at Fox thought this show would get better ratings than Dark Angel.

>Harsh Realm

I only saw a couple episodes of this. It was hard for me to care about what was going on considering it was all VR. And how bright were the guys who designed the VR system if you can't even bring people out of it? Not to mention that because of the format of the show, you know they can never win, or the show will be over.

>Millenium was a TV show i wished I had seen more of.

It started out ok, but by the end it was as full of conspiracy theories as the X-Files. In fact, the X-Files had a crossover episode with Lance tying up the loose ends from the end of Millenium.

>And then there's The Lone Gunmen which when it came on in it's original Fox
>friday night lineup I knew it wasn't going to last. So I taped about half of them.

I taped them all. I'm sure the WTC pilot episode is the reason that not even SciFi has played the repeats.

Here are my picks for shows I would have liked to see continue;

Dead Last - A rock group (2 guys and a girl) find a medallion that lets them see and hear the dead. This doesn't make them happy since the dead always have some unfinished business they want the group to help them with and won't leave them alone until they do. WB only played like 7 of the 13 episodes and then 9/11 killed any chance of them playing the rest.

The Others - A group of friends with various psychic powers help people. 13 episodes, ending in a cliffhanger that looks like they killed off the entire cast.

All Souls - Supernatural happenings in a haunted hospital. Only 6 episodes were made/aired. Sort of like that Stephen King mini-series, only more serious.

Special Unit 2 - Wanted to be like Buffy and even took a stab at that show when the head of the agency said there was no such thing as vampires. Goofy, but fun.

Freakylinks - A group of people who run a web site devoted to the supernatural investigate reports of strange happenings. Also had an ongoing story arc about what happened to the star's brother.

Sleepwalkers - A group goes into people's dreams to help them, sort of like the movie Dreamscape. I think they only made 6 episode and NBC bounced it around the schedule so much that I only saw one episode. Anyone have this on tape?

Space Above and Beyond - Earth at war with an alien race. One season ending ina cliffhanger just as the show was getting really interesting.

Briscoe County rocked.  Me, I want to see a DVD of God, the Devil, and Bob.

Brother R

I liked American Gothic.

Ultraviolet was a really cool show, like a detective series with vampires as the criminals. Channel 4 only produced six episodes and it was only shown on the sci-fi channel. Got cancelled after the cliffhanger ending.

I see a lot of folks have the same tastes here. I too liked Brimstone and Millenium.  Brimstone was a cool concept and John Glover was a perfect choice for the Devil. I was p**sed because they cancelled it with a cliff hanger. I liked the way this show was shot with the stark color.

Millenium  suffered from erratic production.  The first year Chris Carter ran it himself, the second year he gave it to Morgan and Wong (the guys who did Space, Above and Beyond), then Carter didn't like all the religious stuff they brought into play so he completely reworked it in the third season. At least they tried to bring it to an end with the X-Files episode.  This series did spawn the copy cat series the profiler.

Space Above and Beyond also got the shaft by stopping  with a humongous cliff hanger.

Brimstone and GvsE (Good vs Evil on USA) were both excellent shows that I loved watching until they were cancelled.
They had similar premises but were so different and entertaining.

Briscoe County - I've been trying to remember the name of that for a while now.  I really enjoyed it.  They always showed it right after Cleopatra 2525 -  another one I liked that's now on Sci-Fi at 2:00 a.m. on Saturday or something.

Firefly was a neat show.  I watched it at first, then lost interest and started watching again when I heard it was about to be cancelled.  I'll have to pick up the DVD one of these days.  

Relic Hunter was another favorite.  Sort of the Tomb Raider for TV type thing, except with likable characters.  A nice hour of pretty girls, mindless adventure, and exotic locations.

Going back a ways, it would have been nice if Battlestar Galactica had gotten a second season, instead of that putrid "Galactica 1980".

SPACE ABOVE AND BEYOND.
TREMORS THE SERIES!
Nuff said....kinda....
Tremors! Ya had to do it, huh Sci-Fi! Ya rat bast....Argggg! Ah, screw it....they never listen...

Flangepart wrote:

> SPACE ABOVE AND BEYOND.
> TREMORS THE SERIES!
> Nuff said....kinda....
> Tremors! Ya had to do it, huh Sci-Fi! Ya rat bast....Argggg!
> Ah, screw it....they never listen...

What?  Don't tell me they cancelled Tremors?  I actually kinda liked it.

Undeclared and Andy Richter Controls the Universe were two good sitcoms (i swear that's an oxymoron) that fox dropped after only about 1 season.

I never saw that pilot for The Lone Gunmen, now I wish I had.....

I was probably one of 7 people who actually liked NOWHERE MAN.
This was the series where the photographer got a picture of 4 men being hanged in a military camp of some sort, then "They" erased his life and kept trying to get the negative of the picture.

True, it was an X-Files rip-off, but they had the potential to take it really far. The last episode was a royal cop-out.

.  .  .  .  Along the lines of everyone's scifi tastes there was "Now and Again," wanted to see it but it was cancelled early on.  I liked "The Burning Zone", but it ran for three seasons (and cast changes) so it may not qualify, much better than "The X-Files," in it's first season.
.  .  .  .  Guess I'm a sitcom person, so I'll second Andy Richter, and New Line's choice of lead in FvJ.  Both good shows.

from Cabin Boy Andy Richter as Kenny (from memory, so maybe innacurate):
"This is how a harem girl dances."

I really have to agree with Brisco County Jr.  Fantastic TV show!  Who here will ever forget "The Orb"?

It seems that a lot of good cartoons are cancelled way before their time.  Family Guy was a fantastic - hilarious show that shouldn't have been treated the way it was by Fox.  It was their "time filler" for about a year before dropping it.

Undergrads was another great cartoon that was killed too early.  MTV treated it like a bastard as well and finally Comedy Central brought it back for a life at late night.  Now it is completely dead, but there might be a DVD floating around.

Another one that I remember liking quite a bit was Family Dog.  It used to come on CBS and I believe was actually part of Amazing Stories before getting it's own show.  Dunno if anyone remembers that other than myself, but it was seriously funny stuff.

Oh, wow-- Forgot about Family Dog!

I would've liked to see more of On the Air, David Lynch's sitcom which only lasted 6 episodes. The first episode is one of the funniest damn things I've ever seen.

Also, I can't believe no one's mentioned two of the most legendary short-lived series: Police Squad and Clerks: The Animated Series!

You might be able to find a copy of On The Air at the video store.  When I rented mine, there was a film of dust on the cover.  The first episode is really funny, where they try to get the dog to eat, very hilarious.  The ones after that fell flat.

The sad thing, for me, is that a lot of these shows weren't even on long enough for me to get around to taking a look at them. Of those I've seen, I didn't see enough episodes of Briscoe County to really form an opinion. Liked what I saw though. Makes you wonder how a network can decide to cancel something, when you haven't even seen enough to make up your own mind.

I did see every episode of the Lone Gunmen though. It was a great show - lots of fun, with characters I liked and could root for. It revujenated the tired conspiracy theory schtick (which had been done to death) with humour and style. I'm still baffled by its cancellation.

Black Sash-Students at a martial arts school try to cope with the real world. Great show on WB that got hardly any advertising and was on at the same time as Alias. Canned at six episodes.

Briscoe County, JR. and Jack Of All Trades-Two great shows staring the man himself. To bad neither made it to season two.

The Brotherhood Of Poland, New Hampsher-Kick ass show! Very quirky. It was dramatic and knock-you-down hilaroius. Disapeared from the line up in less than two months.

Some I forgot about are:

John Doe. :  Just started to get into it when it was gone.

The rerun Show:  Yes it was stupid but it had some funny jokes, especially the episodes about married with children and the facts of Life

Get Smart Again:  I liked it but then again I was probably a freshman or eigth grader when it came out.

Danger Thetre:  Lasted all of a summer.  I guess it was a filler show for Fox .  It had two shows in one.  A hawaii five o rip off starring Adam West which was okay and then they had The Searcher.  The Searcher was Diedrich Bader and he searched for things for people.  His theme was "SOmeone was in trouble so they called me, that's my job.  I help people . I'm  the Searcher."  It was great.

Action:  It just ended suddenly.  I thought he was supposed to be in heaven and try to talk his way out of deth but it never happened, at least not on Fox.

C 16: a show about the FBI.  It started off light but got a bit too dramatic.

Cupid:  Jeremy Piven as Cupid or a mental case.  Noone was sure.  It worked for a while but then disappeared.

Fantasy Island:  I loved it.  Malcolm McDowell was crepy in genereal and seemed to fit his Mr. Rourke perfectly.

Vengeance Unlimited:  The ultimate  vigilante show.  This had just came out when I had finally saw reservoir Dogs and so Michael Madsen was like an idol to me for a while.  It had great writing and acting and was just entertaining.

GUN:  it was slated as a limited run series but I liked it and would have liked to have seen more episodes of it.

2 that ended on clffhangers, Earth 2 and VR5.

Yeah, I have a dub from a Japanese laserdisc. I agree that the later ones aren't as good, though the other one David Lynch wrote is amusingly weird, and the other one Mark Frost wrote has some good lines ("She's not an actress. She's a secretary waiting to happen!"). I stand by my statement, though, that the first one is one of the greatest bits of TV comedy of the past 10 years, and it's worth it just to see it.

"Blinky Watts is not blind. He suffers from Bozeman's Simplex. He actually sees 25.62 times as much as we do. If you were to see what Blinky is seeing right now, it would look something like THIS."

Earth 2 was another one I liked.  Some great characters in that one.  You had the do-gooder characters like every flippin' sci-fi show, but then there were the more real, "human" characters that treated the do-gooders like "screw you, I'll do what I want".

Totally real.  I loved it.

Oops, I guess it was Jack of All Trades that I was thinking of.  I don't think I ever saw Briscoe County.

Never mind.

This is an oldie, but how about "The Boys"? It was a fairly decent show about 2 sitcom writers. Never made it past the pilot, mainly becuase the network heads thought it was making fun of them.
Of course, there's always MST3K (10 seasons, but it could have easily gone on for another 10)

>Oops, I guess it was Jack of All Trades that I was thinking of. I don't think I ever
>saw Briscoe County.

Briscoe County was an hour-long western show, but with some SciFi elements thrown in, such as time travel etc. A little bit like the original Wild Wild West, but with more humor. Also, Kelly Rutherford in period costumes.

I also liked that show with the hi-tech computer squad investigating crimes. I forget the name.

You know what show I liked and of course, got cancelled?  Freaky Links.  Cheesy, yeah, but hey.  Miracles wasn't HORRIBLE either...

Heck I may have been young (I'm showing my age) when I last saw these... but I luved them while they lasted...

Automan

Mr Merlin

Wizards & Warriors

oh my god - totally forgot about automan!

I always chuckled when the car flew into a curve at 90 degree angles and the human guy got plastered into the window every time...

...why didn't the hologram invent seatbelts in the car? oh well - very entertaining!

and don't forget the sidekick cursor, surprised no one got in trouble for this, it totally borrowed the "bit" character from Tron...

Wizards and Warriors was great!

MANIMAL

I-Man, Tremors and The Lone Gummen were the three great shows that the networks in the infanite wisdom cut just when they were getting good.

Martial Law. Great show. Plenty fun to watch and plenty of action. It rocked getting to see Sammo Hung on TV every week. Canned at the end of the second season(it was just getting started!).

>Martial Law. Great show. Plenty fun to watch and plenty of action. It rocked
>getting to see Sammo Hung on TV every week. Canned at the end of the
>second season(it was just getting started!).

Yeah, and from what I saw, they never did resolve the cliffhanger from the end of the first season, they just ignored it!



Post Edited (03-26-04 15:22)

You might think I'm nuts, but...."I'm with Busey", hilarous, put a brain-damged ex-matinee idol with a 25-year old kid have them hang out and do stuff around the city and watch the wackiness ensue!

The sad truth is we may rarely see these shows again so many awesome televisions. Yet, they had incredibly short lives. I was just thinking about these great television shows. You have a couple of options. You could tape the shows when re-runs appears. You could grab a bunch of us movie and TV freaks to make a petition to ask for DVD or  a re-release. Then there is KAZAA or any other of those file-sharers crap.

Personally I miss these the most.

-Tremors (What can I say, I like the movies and the actors!)

-Titus (It was funny and good, some said it was disgusting and offensive.)

-Firefly (We need more western sci-fis that aren't anime!)

-Lone Gunmen (It was so much better than the X-Files!!!)

-All About the Andersons (It show Anthony Anderson can act! Plus it's the next best thing to Titus.)

-Keen Eddie (This was AWESOME! Should have been the next Columbo! But NOOOOOOO!!!! It gets pulled off the air in a matter of weeks! How is it this stuff is gone but we still have NYPD Blue on!?!?!?!??!?!)

Anyways I wish 20th Century Fox would release them again

They show Keen Eddie on Bravo.  They must be showing unaired espisodes, because I know  Fox  canned it pretty fast.

I know this list could hit  500 replies and the show I never thought got a chance would never be mentioned by anyone else.  

The Pitts - Only a few episodes made but in the ones that were, there were werewolves, a living car, someone getting a pipe stuck through their head, a crazy nanny, a living dummy.  It was in my opinion a B-movie put into a tv show.  How that show failed and Oliver Beene still airs amazes me.

"Salute your Shorts" this was made way back when Nickoldian made good t.v. shows. The show only got about two season but I always loved watching it. Another show was "Freakazoid" A t.v. show rarely makes me laugh out loud but every episode of Freakazoid did. Why did it only get one and a half seasons!!??

Brian Ringler wrote:

> How that show
> failed and Oliver Beene still airs amazes me.

Though I have not watched it, isn't Oliver Beene sorta "The Wonder Years" revisited?

Glad to see people mentioned "Vengeance Unlimited".  I didn't know who Michael Madsen was at the time, but that show was freakin awesome.

Also, Space: Above and Beyond was cool as hell too.

Heh, someone mentioned G vs. E and Brimstone, yeah those were good too.

Here's one nobody's mentioned: Invader ZIM.  Was a new Nicktoon 2 years ago.  Probably one of the best cartoons they've ever had.  But they cancelled it and decided to keep the crap that they show now.

Also, Family Guy.  Glad that Cartoon Network is showing old episodes now.  I heard a rumor that they were going to do another season too.

I think the Best show Nick did Was "the adventures of Pete and Pete."  That show had some truly great moments; Big Pete becomes a Bear, Mr. Tastee goes missing, Iggy Pop as a dad, Steve Buschema (sp?) as the next door neighbor, plus A Superhero- Artie!

I second Pete and Pete that show kicked ass.Anouther Nick show that I loved was Rocko's Modren Life.I loved all the adult humor hidden in that show.

They aired Pete and Pete for awhile on Nick's "nogin" channel and I taped all of them.  That show had some amazing guest stars - micheal stipe for instance, some goofy plots "orange lazurus" and lots of easter eggs; "kreb" products.  It was a good surreal show.  Rocko's was good too. It was good enough that i'm suprised it's not being aired somewhere.  To me Rocko's was a good balance between the blandness of "rugrats" and the stupidness of "spongebob"

I 3rd (4th?) Pete and Pete. I remember thinking it was one of the weirdest shows ever. It's a classic! Also Rocko's Modern Life was really great also. I looked up some old videos a while ago and I'm just now getting the adult jokes. (Of course the adult jokes were suppose to go over the kiddies heads.)

daveblackeye15 wrote:

> "Salute your Shorts" this was made way back when Nickoldian
> made good t.v. shows. The show only got about two season but I
> always loved watching it. Another show was "Freakazoid" A t.v.
> show rarely makes me laugh out loud but every episode of
> Freakazoid did. Why did it only get one and a half seasons!!??
>

From what I heard, Jamie Keller (I think that's the right name) axed because "he didn't get it", and it was taking attention from his own show "His-teria"(SP?). Just some info

>"Salute your Shorts" this was made way back when Nickoldian made good t.v.
>shows.

I also liked Roundhouse, Clarissa Explains it All and The Secret World of Alex Mack, all of which only last a couple seasons at most. Does Nick have something against making a third season of anything?

Clarissa Explains it All was a good show.  I also liked Fifteen (okay, me and three other people), and Hey Dude was pretty cool too.