History ScrewedByTheNetwork / LiveActionTV

* ABC screwed over ''Jake In Progress'' after its second season premiere by replacing its timeslot with ''TheBachelor'' and cancelling the show a few short months afterwards, leaving eight episodes unaired, ABC cited lackluster ratings in the premiere as its reason, it also screwed over ''Emily's Reasons Why Not'' by cancelling it after only one episode for the same reason, while 6 million viewers isn't a whole lot for a premiere, it hardly seems like a good enough reason for cancelling both of those shows, it seems more like ABC just wanted an excuse to cancel the shows so it could fill the time slots with more of they're ''LowestCommonDenominator'' reality shows.

* When the BBC originally aired ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'', they broadcast it at inconsistent hours and preempted it with the ''Horse Of The Year Show''. This is the reason for some of the show's BitingTheHandHumor and malicious jokes about BBC television programming. Terry Jones even had to buy the original tapes from the BBC to prevent their destruction, as TV studios at the time were in the habit of taping over shows they no longer wanted.

* The popular hit Fox show ''New York Undercover'', though it could be argued that it was screwed by the writers, rather than the network. In the third season, the show introduced audiences to Tommy [=McNamara=]. From that season onward, the show focused more around him, than the two original main characters, Julius Clearance and Eduardo Torres. As a result, the show lost ratings and was eventually cancelled.

* ''NewAmsterdam'' was screwed over (by {{Fox}}, of course) before it even made it to air! The network decided last-minute to scrap the show, even after they produced eight episodes and started to promote it. The only reason it made it to air was the writers' strike.

* ''UglyBetty'' was screwed over by ABC. Its first three seasons aired consistently on Thursday nights at 8:00pm. However a slight drop in ratings resulted in the show being shunned to the FridayNightDeathSlot at 9:00pm in favor of "Flash Forward" taking its place (which ended up being canceled). ABC was clearly trying to end Ugly Betty. Betty's ratings were cut in half after the night and time switch, and its fans spoke out. Betty was then moved mid-Season 4 to Wednesday nights at 10:00pm with other comedy shows. Even though Betty's ratings improved, it was too late. The show officially ended at the end of Season 4, not finishing its original ordered run. The show did get a story sendoff, but it was rushed, and many plot points were never explained.
* When ''Kings'' first premiered, NBC had put it in the 8:00 PM Sunday timeslot. However, despite the show's unique concept, strong cast, and high production quality, NBC decided to relegate the fledgling series to Saturday nights after airing just four episodes, where steadily declining ratings eventually killed it.

* ''{{Southland}}'' was plowed over to make room for Jay Leno's daily 10:00 PM show, and didn't come back when the Leno show failed.
** Although it was picked up by TNT.

* For its first 11 years, ''MurderSheWrote'' dominated its timeslot of Sundays at 8:00 PM, always finishing in the Top 20 (and often in the Top 10) each year. Then, for Season 12, CBS abruptly moved it to Thursdays at 8:00...against NBC's ''Series/{{Friends}}'', which was already the #1 show in America. Of course the ratings for ''Murder'' tanked, and ''of course'' the show was cancelled at the end of the season. The result was so predictable and blatantly obvious that the only rational explanation for the move is that somebody at CBS wanted to create an excuse to kill ''Murder''. There really could be no other reason.
** At that point, even Angela Lansbury had been considering it. She had just turned 70, and the demands of a series were beginning to wear on her. The last few seasons had several episodes which were Poorly Disguised Pilots, where Jessica Fletcher was telling the story as a Frame Narrative. Had it not been cancelled when it was, it would have been soon after.

** The show also got screwed in the US when NBC chose not to renew it for a fifth season in favor of the failed ''Jay Leno Show'' experiment. TBS was offered a chance to pick it up but turned it down and creator Greg Garcia chose to do ''RaisingHope'' instead.
*** Garcia was aware that the show's ratings had declined in the fourth season. He asked the network if they were going to renew or cancel the series. He said he could make the final episode of the fourth season a series finale that wrapped up various plotlines or a cliffhanger that would hopefully draw viewers for the fifth season premiere. NBC told him the series would be renewed and he should make the cliffhanger. Garcia did and then NBC cancelled the series.

* Shall no one mourn the loss of ''KyleXY''?. After 3 successful seasons (which most people agreed that it really didn't degrade in quality at any point) it appeared that mainly after the slow decline of ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' and ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' viewers ABCFamily decided that [[MagicRealism Superhuman Realism]] based shows weren't really their bag anymore. So ''Kyle'' was suddenly canceled and "several" new dramatic based shows mainly ''TheSecretLifeOfTheAmericanTeenager'' along with several press statements that ABC Family would be focusing on more realistic shows in the future.
** ABC Family also said ''KyleXY'' was axed due to low ratings. It is true that ratings dropped after ''Secret Life'' premiered, but ''Kyle'' was still pulling in an average of 1.5 million. That's pretty good for ABC Family, but since it wasn't ''Secret Life'''s average of 3 million, it was "low ratings" and worthy of cancellation.
* Another show that was cancelled due to ABCFamily's new "more realistic" outlook was ''Series/TheMiddleMan''. [[TooGoodToLast Alas]].

* E!'s ''The Daily 10'' was announced for cancellation coincidentally, about a week after guest host "Psycho" Mike Catherwood made an extremely crude and lame "prison rape" joke about AdamLambert, who is openly gay. Naturally, regular hosts Catt Sadler and Sal Masakela are screwed out of a job because of what Catherwood did.

* ''Series/BoomTown'' was an interesting experiment. It featured numerous characters, overlapping storylines, out-of-order timelines, and unusual visual techniques. It could conceivably have caught on as a cult show but unfortunately it didn't find an audience. NBC deserves credit for trying something different and for bringing the low-rated show back for a second season. However, it loses that credit for its attempts to "fix" the series in its second season. It removed all of the elements that made the series interesting and essentially remade it into another typical cop show, which ended up getting cancelled anyway.

* {{Disney|Channel}} is infamous for screwing over their popular shows, thanks to their 65-episode only rule. Shows screwed by the network:
** ''LizzieMcGuire'', which helped put the Disney Channel back on the map, was cancelled after fulfilling its 65-show order.
** ''EvenStevens'', also a victim of the 65-episode rule.
** ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' was first cancelled after fulfilling its 65-episode order, [[UnCanceled but was brought back for another season by outraged fans.]]
** ''PhilOfTheFuture'', which was cancelled well before the 65-episode mark, much to the confusion and dismay of fans. The reason Disney gave the cast was that since the show was so popular (and making them so much money), they had a choice: produce a third season of the show or use the money to create another show with the potential to be just as popular. They chose the latter and despite many fans to save the show, the show remained cancelled.

* However, around that point, another rather popular show on UPN happened to be one that got screwed over itself, even moreso following the ''Enterprise'' debacle: ''WWE SmackDown''. When it was picked up in 1999, the WWE was at the peak of its "Attitude Era", and was shown on Thursday nights opposite strong schedules from both NBC and CBS.
** The troubles began, however, right from the very start, as the pro-censorship group Parents Television Council began a major campaign against the show, telling advertisers to stop supporting the show with their advertising dollars. Their main offense stemmed from a murder case that was getting publicity at that time in which a young boy killed a family member by "horsing around" and allegedly imitating wrestling moves the boy saw on WWE programming. Even though the PTC listed companies that had never sponsored any pro wrestling shows (nor did they ever plan to) and listing them as those that were, and listing those that they said pulled advertising but never actually did, it caught the WWE by surprise and forced them to tone down on the token edgy programming that made the Attitude Era what it was, as it bleeped some of the more profane words.
** The fun didn't end there, though. Later on, UPN themselves began screwing around with the program. Due to the change in higher ups on the network (and there refocus on demographics), they forced the WWE to censor a major thing about their programming: the showing of blood on the programs (the WWE was big on having wrestlers "blade" (an effect in which wrestlers would cut themselves on the forehead using a concealed blade to simulate that a big hit caused them to get cut), especially around the start of the "brand extension"). The WWE did this themselves on non-Pay Per View programs by showing the bloody parts in black and white, but UPN began this trend on a 2003 edition of Smack Down. During a match in which Brock Lesner beat down one legged wrestler Zach Gowen, Gowen's cut was so gruesome to UPN that the network decided to try to make it look like the camera that showed his face was malfunctioning, with the picture on that camera getting more and more blurry, up to the point where you could barely see anything going on. It was clear that the malfunction never happened, as not only was the scene reshown on the subsequent Velocity without any censoring and UK Sky Sports also never censored the scene, but during replays of the scene when they came back from commercial, there was a split second in which the final part of the onslaught (which showed Lesner tipping over the stretcher that Gowen was on), in which the picture was clear.
** Finally, when ''Enterprise'' was cancelled, UPN decided to instead move WWE Smack Down into the Friday Night Death Slot as a way to kill interest for the show. However, the move didn't go as planned, as not only did the WWE promote it well (even going so far as to rename the show '''''Friday Night''' Smack Down'') despite UPN never promoting it, but it still remains on Friday Nights through its moves throughout the years from UPN to The CW, then to My Network TV, and then to SyFy, which the latter is where it remains today.
*** An interesting side effect to the screwing is that the WWE actually created a character that acted as a representative of "The Network" that would interfere with plans for the show because it was in the interest of "The Network", as a way to satirize the entire situation.

* ABC screwed over ''Jake In Progress'' after its second season premiere by replacing its timeslot with ''TheBachelor'' and cancelling the show a few short months afterwards, leaving eight episodes unaired, ABC cited lackluster ratings in the premiere as its reason, it also screwed over ''Emily's Reasons Why Not'' by cancelling it after only one episode for the same reason, while 6 million viewers isn't a whole lot for a premiere, it hardly seems like a good enough reason for cancelling both of those shows, it seems more like ABC just wanted an excuse to cancel the shows so it could fill the time slots with more of they're ''LowestCommonDenominator'' reality shows.

** A variant of this involves series that are clearly popular, yet the network/studio refuses to issue the series in proper DVD sets, preferring either piecemeal releases (i.e. "best of" collections), edited-together "movie" versions (which still happens; see KimPossible), or money-grabbing "Part 1", "Part 2" splits, even if a complete season would easily fit on two discs. Nickelodeon and Disney are terrible for this (it wasn't until towards the end of its run that full seasons of Series/{{iCarly}} began to appear, and the world is still waiting for full seasons of Kim Possible). Hasbro has also dragged its feet on getting series sets of MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic out, despite the proven deep pockets of the shows immense adult fanbase.

* A general example: perhaps out of embarrassment at having cancelled a series, or inability to come to terms with licensing and royalties, or other reasons, there have been many cases of series, having been cancelled, that have been refused later DVD release. A good example of this is Season 2 of BetterOffTed, plus The CW series TheSecretCircle, which was cancelled despite being popular and with the studio subsequently announcing (for reasons no one seems to understand) that it will not be released to DVD. This appears to be a different scenario than the inability for certain older series such as Series/{{Batman}} and TheWonderYears to be achieve DVD release due to licensing and other issues, as any recent series would be expected to have made the proper arrangements ahead of time, and Better Off Ted's first season was released to DVD without issue.

* ''{{Wonderfalls}}'' (aired on {{Fox}}, of course!) was canceled after four weeks, one of the quickest deaths Fox has ever managed to give a show. But that was only the ''last'' of a number of choices on the part of the network that led to the show's demise: first, the show was developed at the same time as CBS' ''JoanOfArcadia'', to which at first glance it may seem strikingly similar in theme. Supposedly fearing it would draw too many comparisons, they held off the premiere for an entire ''year'', which backfired and led some to think it was a deliberate copy (as opposed to a coincidence), especially as ''Joan'' had proven successful and ''was still on the air''. Worse, it started airing 8:00 PM on a Friday, which had the dual misfortune of not only being the same time as ''Joan'' aired on CBS, but of also being the infamous FridayNightDeathSlot, whose name tends to be especially apt for non-family friendly fare... which of course, describes ''Wonderfalls''. In a sort of CoupDeGrace, Fox finally moved the show after its third week to Thursday, where it would ostensibly get better ratings... of course, they did this ''without telling anyone'', so it kind of defeated the purpose. Fox also ran promos for the fifth episode, only to pull the series before it aired.

** The new series was not immune to this too. The series debuted on the US SciFiChannel in 2006 and was screwed from the start. Varying minutes of material was cut from episodes for time, ("Journey's End", originally 65 minutes, was cut down to 45 minutes. Editing over-kill.) the trailers for the show the channel ran often revealed hefty spoilers, and finally they got rid of the show completely in 2009. BBCAmerica picked it up and have been treating it much, ''much'' better than SciFiChannel did.

* ABC's apparent reaction to ''CommanderInChief'' winning rave reviews and Emmys for its acting was to kill the show. They put it on hold during the Winter Olympics, then moved it to a different timeslot afterwards without properly announcing this. Ratings suffered, as tends to happen when one moves a show to a new timeslot without announcing it, so they canceled it.

*** It's true that CBS did cancel a number of shows, some of which were still popular. But in the network's defense, the shows they brought in to replace the cancelled shows included ''Series/AllInTheFamily'', ''Series/TheMaryTylerMooreShow'', ''Series/{{Mash}}'', ''Series/TheBobNewhartShow'', ''{{Maude}}'', ''Series/GoodTimes'', ''OneDayAtATime'', and ''TheJeffersons''.

* ''Series/AmericanDreams'' by NBC - the show performed fairly decently in its original Sunday night timeslot, but it wasn't enough. NBC played a wise move and moved the show to Wednesday nights at 10 in direct competition with CBS' ''Surviver: Palau'' and ABC's ''Series/{{Lost}}''. The show was canceled despite many fan campaigns, but the producers were able to film a brief finally to WrapItUp, but NBC ultimately decided not to broadcast the finale, leaving many viewers hanging.

** In an extremely odd move even by Nickelodeon standards, [[Series/{{Victorious}} has been canceled despite being a massive hit. Why? Something about the channel (as said by the [[WordOfGod executive producer of How To Rock]])''going through a transition right now.'' Same goes for Series/{{How to Rock}}, which was on the air for ''one season only''.

** Though since the fall, it seems to be making its way back up rather quickly.

** [[Series/{{Big Time Rush}} was attempted to be killed by the network by moving to a Monday timeslot. It backfired because it was during the summer so more kids tuned in than expected.
** In an extremely odd move even by Nickelodeon standards, [[Series/{{Victorious}} has been canceled despite being a massive hit. Why? No one really knows. Same goes for [[Series/{{How to Rock}}, which was on the air for ''one season only''.

*** In order to prove a claim about AMC not being watched enough, Dish pulled a sneaky (and very dirty) move during the final weeks that AMC was on the service: they moved the channel to a deep part of its 1000's array of channels to see if people would notice the move. However, what Dish was banking on, and what they got, was that because people were never told that the channel would be moved (or to where), and because it was near impossible for people to find the channel it was on (since it was on an ungodly and rarely clicked on high channel number), no one was able to watch it, thus no on did. Dish claimed this was proof enough that there was no value in keeping the channels on the lineup.

** The highly publicized case involving DirecTV and Viacom owned channels is unique in which one side kept claiming it was the other's fault for pulling the channels. DirecTV said Viacom forced them to remove the channels despite DTV not wanting to remove them, while Viacom kept harking that it was DTV's sole decision. Nonetheless, the dispute was mainly over a series of movie channels called "Epix" that Viacom wanted DirecTV to add as an "all or nothing" endeavor. However, even that is disputable depending on which side you ask (Viacom said it wasn't forcing Epix on DTV, while DTV says otherwise). Even then, the issue was soon resolved, with a deal in which DTV has the option to add Epix. The channels still remain in limbo for DirecTV, and it doesn't seem as though DTV is in any hurry to add the channels, since they claim that the channels were the reason for why rates for customers would've gone up if Viacom had their way to begin with. More to the point, DTV didn't even mention the Epix channels at first, only being forced to when Viacom claimed that talks "broke down", making DTV counter with the reason being the dispute over Epix.

*** And now the death of Michael Clarke Duncan prevents any chance of a revival.

** Speaking of ''Victorious''... [[http://www.mmm-mag.com/2012/08/m-exclusive-victorious-will-not-be-returning-for-season-four.html]] Sorry.
*** Though according to [[http://www.danwarp.blogspot.com/2012/08/victorious.html WordOfGod]], Nick always planned on ending the show after 60 episodes regardless of ratings(apparently they're position is similar to the Disney Channel's old 65 episode policy)

** Finally, when ''Enterprise'' was cancelled, UPN decided to instead move WWE Smack Down into the [[Friday Night Death Slot]] as a way to kill interest for the show. However, the move didn't go as planned, as not only did the WWE promote it well (even going so far as to rename the show '''''Friday Night''' Smack Down'') despite UPN never promoting it, but it still remains on Friday Nights through its moves throughout the years from UPN to The CW, then to My Network TV, and then to SyFy, which the latter is where it remains today.
*** An interesting side effect to the screwing is that the WWE actually created a character that acted as a representative of "The Network" that would interfere with plans for the show because it was in the interest of "The Network", as a way to satirize the entire situation.

* The [[UrExample granddaddy]] of all ScrewedByTheNetwork examples: [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries the original]] ''{{Series/Star Trek|TheOriginalSeries}}''. After two seasons of middling ratings, {{NBC}} announced its intent to cancel the show. However, [[SendingStuffToSaveTheShow a national campaign of letter writing]], led by a fan named Betty Jo Trimble, resulted in an unprecedented backdown by the network. NBC renewed the show for Season 3... but also cut the show's budget by approximately half and placed the show in the FridayNightDeathSlot, when the show's demographic was likely to be doing anything but watching TV. Episode quality, and consequently ratings, suffered meteoric falls (although it was responsible for some of the series' most memorable episodes), followed by cancellation at the end of the season.\\

*** Actually, ''FarScape'' and ''Tremors'' aired side-by-side in the former's final season, long before the cancellation announcement. The cancellation of ''FarScape'' ''was'', however, followed very soon after by the announcement of a [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute stylistically similar]] [[BattlestarGalacticaReimagined show]]...

* And then there's ''AmericanGothic''. The show premiered at 10:00 PM on Fridays, a fairly-good time slot. There was plenty of press, promotions, a lot of hype. The show aired, got rave reviews from critics and fans alike... and then, for no apparent reason, scheduling issues began cropping up. Whether the executives in charge at {{CBS}} changed and wished to do away with the success of their predecessors (though CBS was transitioning from the disastrous cheapskate Tisch era of the network to Westinghouse ownership; the final-year Tisch era had left a Fox-lite schedule with post-NFL transition disasters such as an Andrew Dice Clay sitcom where he plays [[HypocriticalHumor a family man]], ''Bless This House'', and ''Central Park West'' with the new owners), didn't understand how good a thing they had, or didn't understand the show at all, all sorts of problems began plaguing the show. It would be preempted; there would be no episode shown, something else randomly stuck on in its place with no explanation; there would be gaps of several weeks between new episodes, sometimes filled by reruns but usually not; episodes were shown out of order, or never aired at all. Then, without warning, the show was completely yanked from the line-up and vanished for many months. Granted, the show was unusual, not for everyone, and very different from most of CBS' usual fare, but with so many praising it for its daring and disturbing nature, you'd think they'd have gotten a clue. It was certainly TooGoodToLast. Luckily the creators knew long enough ahead of time that the plug was being pulled, and managed to wrap up the main plot points. But even these final episodes were withheld for a long time, then suddenly plunked on TV one right after another as a three-hour movie "event".

* ''TheGoodies'' were shafted by a BBC executive who never liked them. They were denied funding and retreated to ITV, who cancelled them after a season or two.

* The ''Series/GrowingPains'' spin-off ''Just the Ten of Us'' was screwed by its network {{ABC}} because of politics. Although ''Just the Ten of Us'' did well in the ratings on Friday nights (and frequently won its 9:30 p.m. timeslot), ABC wanted all shows in the TGIF block to be produced by Miller-Boyett Productions (as was the case with ''Series/FullHouse'', ''Series/FamilyMatters'' and ''Series/PerfectStrangers''). Ultimately, after finding no other suitable timeslot for ''Just the Ten of Us'' in time for the 1990-91 season, the series was canceled outright and replaced by a short-lived series called ''Going Places'' (which lasted only one season).

* ''Series/CentralParkWest'' is an interesting case. The show was originally a way for {{CBS}} to bounce back after their disastrous 1994-1995 season. The network threw their entire marketing clout behind the show, which was touted as the hottest and sexiest drama to ever air on a network, and bolstered it with a massive advertising campaign - huge banners on buildings, bus advertisements, commercials, you name it. For a reason only known to the executives, CPW's first two episodes were scheduled against anniversary episodes of the two biggest prime time soap operas airing at that time (''BeverlyHills90210'' and ''Series/MelrosePlace''). It also had to deal with the big affiliate shuffle in the wake of the {{Fox}}/NFL deal, where the new CBS stations just wanted to make sure viewers knew where they were on the dial first before getting into things such as network promotion. The show was trounced in the ratings, which would have led to its cancellation had {{CBS}} not already invested so much money into the program (roughly $13-15 '''million''' for the first season alone). The show was continually pre-empted, aired on different days (which led to its being trounced by ''PartyOfFive'') and then taken off the network while the show was retooled. When it came back, half the cast was gone and the series' theme was changed to a ''{{Dynasty}}''-esque clone. However, it didn't last even a handful of episodes before CBS pulled the plug for good.

*** Luckily, {{PBS}} would pull a NetworkToTheRescue by contracting most of its affiliates to carry the show. As of this writing, the first nine series have aired in their entirety, and this troper's PBS station is re-airing the earlier episodes while presumably waiting for series ten to become available in America. That plus the fact that, unlike the cable runs, the episodes are aired in their entirety (the cable runs cut them to fit into hour-long slots with commercials), has made for a far more satisfactory viewing experience.

* {{CBS}} in 1979 cancelled ''Series/WonderWoman'' and ''The Amazing Spider-Man'' and never went forward on the ''Comicbook/DoctorStrange'' and ''CaptainAmerica'' pilots not because their ratings were poor because they didn't want to be seen as "The SuperHero Network." Only ''Series/TheIncredibleHulk,'' survived.

* ''GoonShow'' founder Michael Bentine went on to make two acclaimed series of surrealistic comedy for the BBC, ''It's A Square World'' and ''Potty Time''. Very, very few of Bentine's shows survive today. Michael Bentine alleged that when he refused to incorporate political satire into his shows at the behest of very senior BBC executives, not only did the BBC rip up a contract for more shows, it deliberately wiped all the tapes so that Bentine could not profit from repeat fees or overseas sales. If this is true, then the BBC execs cut off their collective nose to spite their face, in screwing over an artiste who would not play ball at the price of destroying a critically admired comedy show.