Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish in June 2010.
September 20: All About Audio freebie — aka top ten audiobooks you should listen to, 10 books I want to listen to on audio,10 bands you should check out, 10 podcasts you should be listening to, 10 of my all time favorite albums, 10 songs I love, really whatever you can come up with.
Yikes! I don’t really do audio books. I’ve tried many times and just can’t get into them. So instead I’m going to do this weeks post on a recent topic that I missed.
September 6: In honor of Fall TV, do a TV-themed topic!
Ok, let’s be honest, I have a problem. I am somehow a sucker for sci-fi shows that are only 1 or 2 seasons long. If a show is destined to be cancelled too soon I will be a fan. (And I’m not just talking about Firefly, although that will be at the top of my list.) Show after show, I get into it and it gets cancelled (or I got into it without realizing how it ends.) Doctor Who fans should be glad I’ve never gotten into the Doctor, because it would probably get cancelled as soon as I did. (The ONLY exception to this rule so far has been Star Trek of which I have been a fan since I was a child.)
This time I have listed them in order.
Top Ten TV Shows That Ended Too Soon
- Firefly – What can I say? One of the greatest shows ever created and it’s only 14 episodes long. If you haven’t watched it yet quit reading this list and go watch it!
- Roughnecks – An animated story about the characters from Starship Troopers (closer to the book than the movie adaptation.) The character development is really deep for a cheesy action animated series. You will actually get invested in the characters, but it has one of the most jarring endings ever! Being honest, this is the series I would want to see get a second chance. Not because it’s better than Firefly, but because as an animated series it would be easier to finish/reboot. The actors from Firefly have moved on and aged and it just wouldn’t be the same at this point.
- Space Above and Beyond – Can I cry? The ending of this series makes me want to cry. The season ends on a cliff hanger, because you know they were expecting a second season and were hoping to pick up the story where it left off. But sadly it didn’t happen. This series follow a class of marine cadets through their training and out into the war zone as an alien encounter with settlers soon leads to full blown war.
- Doll House – Another Joss Weadon gem. In this series Echo is a doll, someone whose mind can be reprogrammed in order to be your perfect date, or a hostage negotiator, or whoever else you might want her to be. Echo is not an average doll though, there is something unique about her mind. At least Joss got warning that there was going to be a third season and sort of got to wrap the series up. Although there was a lot more that he could have done with it.
- The Finder – A series that might have gone far if not for the untimely death of one of it’s stars. Walter Sherman has a gift for finding things and seeing connections that others don’t. A great light-hearted detective series that end all too soon. RIP Michael Clarke Duncan.
- Alphas – The best of the nuevo-mutant series, which includes Hero’s and The Tomorrow People. Alphas is a character drama about people who have extraordinary gifts. Abilities unlike anything the human race has seen so far. My favorite is Gary an autistic man who can see radio waves, cellphone signals and other broadcasts. Season two ends on a cliff hanger, and I don’t know why there wasn’t a third season.
- Star Hunter – Just when the cheesy-ness of this Y2K sci-fi show begins to pay off, it’s over. The graphics are bad, the sets are bad, the screen plays mediocre, but it grows on you. The story of a out-of-luck starship captain and his plucky crew is familiar. I’m not sure why I liked it so much maybe because it attempts to add some real physics and depth to its sci-fi story telling.
- Dark Angel – I am in the middle or re-watching the series for the first time since it went off air (so don’t spoil the ending for me.) Max is a super powered teenager, who is the result of a secret government program. She escaped and is living in secret in a near-future Seattle. An EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) erased all of the banking and credit card data and really everything online plunging the US into a new non-quite post- apocalyptic great depression. Max is a cat-bugler/street vigilante searching for clues to her past while trying to stay under the radar for government powers that want her back.
- Earth 2 – It’s been on my Netflix queue for a long time but I just can’t bring myself to watch it again. I guess I’m afraid that the effects will be really dated and it won’t live up to the test of time. This is about a desperate group of Earth colonists who crash land on a planet and attempt to start over.
- Ark – Technically a web series, not a TV series, but still I had to mention it because it had great production values and a great story. A woman wakes up on a mysterious ship deep in space, with no knowledge of where she is or how she got there, but it seems that she is not alone.
So that’s my list. Do you have a favorite show you think got canceled too soon? Have you watched any of the series that I mentioned? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
