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1* Creator/{{NBC}} is gaining a big rep for being the NetworkToTheRescue. It has stuck with a lot of shows that aren't ratings giants, like ''Series/{{The Office|US}}'', ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'', and ''Series/{{Hannibal}}'' (though ''Earl'' and ''Hannibal'' were canceled after their fourth and third seasons, respectively). Another example is all the promotion they've put into ''Series/{{Heroes}}''.
2** This is probably the result of NBC not having a lot of hits to begin with, so standards for renewal are lower. But a ''real'' case of them coming to the rescue is for shows like ''Series/{{Chuck}}'' and ''Series/ThirtyRock'', which are not ratings giants.
3*** More like "Subway To the Rescue", but nevertheless, NBC heard the fans and renewed ''Chuck''.
4*** Same for ''Series/ParksAndRecreation''. Despite the consensus that it [[GrowingTheBeard grew the beard]] in Season 2 and escaped the notion of it being a pale knock-off of ''Series/TheOfficeUS'', the viewing audience dipped below 5 million, startlingly low for a show on broadcast TV. Nevertheless, the loads of critical praise Season 2 has received was a key factor in NBC renewing the show despite the declining ratings that show no signs of improved life.
5** ''Series/HillStreetBlues'' did a lot of things that are commonplace in a cop show today, but sure weren't back in 1980 when it was created. Things like the shaky-cam, imperfect heroes, cut-up dialogue, etc. The ratings of its first season weren't good, but ''Hill Street Blues'' later won a truckload of Emmys and is generally considered one of the best, if not ''the'' best, cop show of all time.
6** ''Hill Street Blues'' is not even the most prominent example of a network coming to the rescue simply because an exec thought a show was quality work and deserved airtime. In its first season, ''Series/{{Cheers}}'' finished ''dead last'' in the ratings. The major network exec at the time kept it on the air until it could find its audience because he thought it was too good to last.
7** Another big one for NBC is ''Series/FridayNightLights''. It was a constant ratings disappointment in its first two seasons, but gained enough fans among the network executives that it was saved by an experimental schedule of having the next season be only thirteen episodes, which would first air on [=DirecTV=] in the fall and then on NBC itself in the spring. It was such a success that ''two'' more similarly constructed seasons were ordered towards the end of it. Notably, those three seasons are essentially being constructed as one long epilogue, with a large part of the focus going toward giving each character a three or four episode arc to send them off the show.
8** NBC rejected ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' after the pilot bombed in audience testing, but NBC exec Rick Ludwin liked it and took money out of his personal corporate budget to finance more episodes and talked the network into airing it as a summer replacement series. It got good enough ratings that they picked it up full-time in the middle of the next season.
9** Contrary to popular perception, ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' fits this trope. The first pilot for was turned down by both CBS and NBC, but the latter network did something unheard of in the 1960s (and still fairly rare today) and asked Creator/GeneRoddenberry to do a second pilot episode. And later it was more like Network's Biggest Figurehead to the Rescue when Creator/LucilleBall made vague threats to execs that convinced them to bring it back for season 3.
10** ''Late Night With Creator/ConanOBrien'': The show didn't start off well for the first few years. Early commercials even mocked the fact that no one knew who O'Brien was and that he was obviously uncomfortable in front of the camera. In spite of it all, NBC stuck with it and were rewarded with the highest rated late night lineup along with Jay Leno. Unfortunately, when they gave Conan ''Series/TheTonightShow'', they didn't give him [[ScrewedByTheNetwork much of a chance]].
11* Going all the way back to 1966, NBC picked up ''Series/TheHollywoodSquares'' after CBS turned it down. It ran from 1966 to 1980, an unheard-of lifespan for a game show in that era, and spawned a nighttime syndicated version that lasted from 1971 to 1981. Since then, the show has had four revivals (''Series/TheMatchGameHollywoodSquaresHour'', also for NBC, in 1983-84; syndie versions from 1986-89 and 1998-2004; and ''HipHopSquares'' in 2012).
12* The pinnacle of NBC's balls of steel (at least in the 1980s) is none other than ''Series/TheCosbyShow''. When the show's producers Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner approached ABC with the concept, they balked, claiming audiences wouldn't buy the idea of a wealthy black family. In addition, Creator/BillCosby was not a big star and stand-up comics didn't get shows that revolved around them at that time. Not to mention, the sitcom was considered a dying genre at the time and ABC did not want to take a risk. NBC, however, took the risk and scored big. ''The Cosby Show'' ranked number one in the Nielsen ratings five years in a row, and as a result, many other NBC shows, a lot of them heretofore struggling to win viewership, became hugely popular in the Nielsen ratings as well. All of this gave NBC much needed revenue to avoid going bankrupt. ABC, for their part, saw many of their once mega-successful programs take a tremendous nosedive in the ratings, which in turn, led to a huge decline in revenue, causing the network to be bought out by a company only a tenth of their size, Capital Cities Communications.
13* When ''Series/MiamiVice'' was being cast, Brandon Tartikoff insisted on the show having significant roles for Blacks. Also he allowed Creator/StephenJCannell to build ''Series/TheATeam'' around Creator/MrT. None of the other networks were this insistent on handing out parts to non-whites.
14* In 2018, {{Creator/FOX}} cancelled ''Series/BrooklynNineNine'' after its fifth season, much to the annoyance of fans everywhere. However, a few other networks offered to continue it, and it was ultimately picked up by NBC for a sixth season; the show is distributed by NBC sister studio Universal Television, and NBC had been kicking itself from day one in rejecting it in the first place.
15* Creator/{{CBS}} managed to get one over on NBC after they dumped ''Series/{{JAG}}'' after the first season in 1995-1996. CBS picked it up in the middle of 1997 as a midseason replacement and ''JAG'' got '''nine more seasons''' with good ratings, making it a LongRunner. Then, it had an ''even more'' successful spin-off, ''Series/{{NCIS}}'', which had a quiet start in 2003, but consistently improved its viewer numbers until it became TV's number one scripted show. It's stayed there too, 14 seasons strong and counting, and has gotten spin-offs of its own in the form of ''Series/NCISLosAngeles'' (2009, which is going into its 9th season), and ''Series/NCISNewOrleans'' (2014). CBS has been laughing all the way to the bank since 1997.
16* ''Series/{{MASH}}'' drew mediocre ratings in its first season. However, summer re-runs drew surprisingly large audiences, prompting CBS to stick with it; it lasted for another ten years, becoming one of the most successful and beloved sitcoms ever aired.
17* {{Creator/FOX}} initially did this with ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles''. Then, after a drop in ratings, they moved it to the FridayNightDeathSlot midway through the second season, and, according to a deluge of on-site news reports, axed it.
18** Similarly, Fox surprised a lot of people by renewing ''Series/{{Dollhouse}}'', despite low ratings in the FridayNightDeathSlot. Of course, knowing that they would be crucified in effigy for giving a Joss Whedon show just half a season [[Series/{{Firefly}} a second time]] probably had a lot to do with it.
19** FOX did something like this for ''Series/{{Fringe}}'', as well. In the second season, they moved it to the FridayNightDeathSlot, yet they renewed it two more times. During the fourth season, fans had started a Twitter campaign to save the show, and Fox cooperated by replacing the #Fringe hashtag in the corner of the screen with the fans' episode-specific hashtags. Eventually, they decided to renew the series for a final 13-episode fifth season, which ingratiated them with the fans and brought the show up to the 100-episode mark unofficially required for syndication.
20** Fox gave similar treatment to ''Series/{{Cops}}'' in the early 2010s with many new episodes being preempted by sports overtimes and then being joined in progress. When Fox cancelled the series in spring 2013, it was immediately renewed by Spike TV. The series would survive the jump over to Spike's replacement Paramount Network only to be cancelled in 2020 over public fallout from the George Floyd murder and resulting riots. One year later, Fox would be on the opposite end when they picked the series back up for broadcast in the US on the Fox Nation service.
21* The pilot for ''Series/{{Lost}}'' was the most expensive ever; and none of the actors in it were major stars. In fact, one executive was fired for even giving it the go-ahead. However, Creator/{{ABC}} stuck with it, since going back would mean a loss of millions. Also ABC head Stephen [=McPherson=] thought it had 'some potential'. ''Series/{{Lost}}'' is now considered one of TV's greatest dramas, [[ContinuityLockout if you know what's going on]]. After the show started stalling -- and losing viewers -- during the second and third seasons, showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse began to bargain with ABC for an unprecedented concept: a set end-date several years down the line. ABC agreed, and starting with the second half of season 3, ''Lost'' has been steadily gaining steam in terms of answers. Unfortunately, the show continues to lose viewers, and on a recent edition of the podcast, Lindelof quietly speculated that the show might have been canceled by now if the above agreement hadn't been hammered out.
22* ''Series/LawAndOrder'' wasn't expected to be a hit, but NBC stuck with it, and it enjoyed a twenty year run before being canceled. Two of its American spinoffs (''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' and ''Series/LawAndOrderCriminalIntent'') also enjoyed long, successful runs, but a few others (''Series/LawAndOrderTrialByJury'', ''Series/{{Conviction}}'', ''Series/LawAndOrderLA'') were canceled after one season.
23* ''Series/DoctorWho''.
24** ''Doctor Who'', back in '63, got a "second pilot" due to the first pilot being [[TroubledProduction riddled with technical errors]]. Its first broadcast also had poor ratings due to parts of the country being hit with a power outage at the time of its broadcasting (and coinciding with coverage of the assassination of President Kennedy in the rest of the country) so it was repeated, at a time when this was very rare.
25** In 1969, ''Doctor Who'' was haemorrhaging viewers and the current Doctor, Creator/PatrickTroughton, had told the producers he was planning on quitting at the end of the Season. At the same time, the BBC was preparing to [[UsefulNotes/SwitchToColor Switch To Colour]]; since colour TV was more expensive to shoot and made special effects more difficult, there was a belief that ''Doctor Who'' would be too expensive to keep. It would have been cancelled for good had the producer Creator/DerrickSherwin not fought to keep the show on the air, presenting his plan for a grittier ([[BottleEpisode and much cheaper]]) {{Retool}}ed format, and securing a {{Stunt Cast|ing}} comic actor as the new lead if the BBC chose to continue making the show. Eventually, they did.
26** In 2004, the general perception of ''Series/DoctorWho'' was that it had run its course and wouldn't fit in to the new TV landscape especially in light of the failure of [[Recap/DoctorWhoTVMTheTVMovie the TV movie]] (in '''America''', not the UK, where the movie predictably performed well) produced by... that's right, Fox! But Creator/TheBBC took a chance and commissioned a new series headed by Creator/RussellTDavies. The general perception has swung to the other way since.
27** In 2009, the BBC was unconvinced that ''Doctor Who'' could continue drawing views without the hugely popular Creator/DavidTennant in the lead (despite the show managing by changing lead actors for its ''entire history'' up until then) and plans were made to cancel it. Only when Davies told the BBC "you are not allowed to end it" and insisted on handing the reins to Creator/StevenMoffat did the BBC reverse its decision.
28** North American broadcasts of the 2005-present revival series have been rescued by networks on a couple of occasions. In the US, after initially rejecting the series as being "too British", the Sci-Fi Channel (now Syfy) aired the show for its first few seasons before basically cancelling it; fortunately, BBC America picked it up for the 2009 specials and the popularity of ''Doctor Who'' Stateside skyrocketed after that. In Canada, the revival was initially aired by the CBC, which was guilty of ScrewedByTheNetwork shenanigans, especially during Seasons 3 and 4 (the CBC never even bothered airing the 2007 Christmas special); the CBC dropped Doctor Who in 2009 but it was immediately picked up by Creator/SpaceChannel, where it has thrived ever since.
29** Attempts to syndicate ''Doctor Who'' to American commercial broadcasters in the 1970s were, at most, only moderately successful. It wasn't until PBS broadcasters adopted the show that it truly began to build its cult following in the US.
30** On December 1st, 2015, Hypp TV decided to drop BBC Entertainment, and thus ''Series/DoctorWho'', from its channel lineup, halfway through Series 9. To say that Malaysian Whovians aren't pleased with that decision is an understatement. Thankfully, the show became available on Netflix Asia in mid-2016, and then Hypp TV quietly proceeded to pick up the BBC First Video-on-Demand service in October 2016, making the good doctor, along with a whole slew of BBC programming that went away with BBC Entertainment, once again available in Malaysia.
31* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'':
32** The first two seasons aired on the Comedy Channel before it merged with Ha! to form Comedy Central. Ha! wanted to remove MST from the line-up, but Comedy Channel considered it the "flagship of its fleet" and refused to merge unless it remained. Not only did they keep it on, they gave it a contract for three 26-episode seasons.
33** Eventually, the series got [[ScrewedByTheNetwork screwed by]] Creator/ComedyCentral after a change in leadership. Then the [[Creator/{{Syfy}} Sci Fi Channel]] came to the rescue. Then Sci Fi screwed them as well, again, after a change in leadership. However, despite this, they had managed 10 seasons on the air (not even counting the KTMA season) when the axe fell. As Kevin Murphy said on the ''[[Film/TheLordOfTheRings Lord Of The Rings]]'' Podcast/RiffTrax, "I'd like to fail like that."
34** Nearly two decades later, a massively successful Kickstarter campaign saw a revival season. The success of the revival means that funding for season 12 (and presumbly all future seasons) will be coming mostly from Netflix directly.
35* ''Series/TheEricAndreShow'' was reportedly shopped around to multiple networks, including {{Creator/MTV}} and {{Creator/NBC}}, who rejected it. However, when [[Creator/EricAndre Eric]] showed it to [[Creator/AdultSwim Adult Swim]], they greenlit the show with little hesitation. CEO Keith Crofford cited it as being "pretty much a no-brainer".
36* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' was ditched by NBC after the seventh season and given a proper final season on ABC (which owned the show already; it was produced by Disney's Touchstone TV). Which was successful enough to warrant a ''ninth'' (and what would turn out to be final) season.
37* After several networks passed on it, HBO took a chance on a script about a middle-aged guy, his dysfunctional wife, his dysfunctional business partners, his shrink, and his homicidal mother. Today, it's known as ''Series/TheSopranos''.
38* Believe it or not, Fox (seriously this is becoming a RunningGag) actually rejected the concept of ''Series/AmericanIdol'' numerous times before they finally decided to make a go of it and were rewarded with the highest rated program of the 2000's (Of course, [[AdoredByTheNetwork a lot of people tend to complain that they actually]] ''[[AdoredByTheNetwork did]]'' [[AdoredByTheNetwork run with it and are still supporting it instead of their pet show]]...) Apparently, ''Idol'' was originally pitched to Creator/{{UPN}}, who [[ItWillNeverCatchOn rejected it]]. The people who ran the network weren't the best at programming (they killed the AnimatedAdaptation of ''WesternAnimation/{{Dilbert}}'' by scheduling it after a show called ''Shasta [=McNasty=]''), and the fact that UPN died unceremoniously in 2006 shows how badly they screwed up.
39* ''Series/BlakesSeven'':
40** The BBC was planning to end the series with the third season finale, which saw the main villain killed off, the heroes' spacecraft destroyed and them marooned on a distant artificial planetoid. The cast and crew believed the show was over and started looking for other projects. Then, whilst watching the Season 3 finale at home, the head of BBC Drama found he and his family were enjoying it so much he rang up BBC Television Centre and told the {{continuity announce|ment}}r to say that the show would be back the following year, which was the first anyone on the show's production team knew about it. Possibly the shortest-notice network to the rescue in history?
41** Ironically, the far darker and more memorable Season 4 finale wasn't supposed to be the final episode of the show, merely the cliffhanger into a fifth and final season. The BBC decided to call it a day at that point, despite the extremely strong ratings (besting ''Series/CoronationStreet'', Britain's biggest soap opera, in the ratings with over 10 million viewers). Creator/GarethThomas had emphatically declined to reprise his role as Blake except for a one-off appearance in the finale (in which he was [[KilledByRequest killed off at his own insistence]]) and there weren't many more places to go with the story arc without turning it into a FranchiseZombie.
42* ''Series/BabylonFive'':
43** Warner Brothers were quietly supportive of the series throughout the first four years of its run, repeatedly not canceling it and in fact giving it modest budget increases between seasons simply because a lot of the executives apparently just really liked it, to the extent of not even giving production notes after the start of the second season and just letting the production team get on with it. They were rewarded by moderate ratings increases and a high profile among SF fans, arguably higher than that of rival series ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' which cost more than twice as much to make. When they were faced with the task of canceling the show due to the Creator/{{PTEN}} service(what was left of it, anyway) collapsing, they encouraged their cousins at TNT to come on board and save the day, ensuring that the show got to it's planned ending. Warner Brothers eventually reaped a strong reward: international, VHS and DVD sales have seen the show make more than five times its budget back in profit since the show ended.
44** B5 also had an example of a foreign network coming to the rescue. The first season didn't ''quite'' make enough money for Warner Brothers to justify renewing it. Then Channel 4 (pleased with the ratings they were getting) contacted WB to buy first run rights in the UK for any future seasons.
45* There have been two cases where this has resulted in transforming DuelingShows into Complementing Shows:
46** ''Series/{{Medium}}'' was canceled by NBC and rescued by CBS... which put it right after ''Series/GhostWhisperer''. Ironically, the latter was axed before the former.
47** ''Series/{{Southland}}'' was also canceled by NBC and rescued by TNT... which already has the DarkerAndEdgier cop show ''Series/DarkBlue''.
48* When Creator/JohnCleese and his gang went together to create their show, they went to the BBC. The interview went basically with the interviewer asking every possible question in the book, and the gang replying with that they didn't quite know ("Will you have any music?" "Oh, we never really thought about that..." "Alright, so what's the name?" "Oh, well, we haven't come to that quite yet...." "Any guest stars?" "Oh, that's a good question..."), John Cleese himself stating that "they must have made the worst impression any group ever made". They ''still'' got 13 episodes to prove they were epic, and, well, we all know how that worked out: we got ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus''.
49** Related to this, when studio execs were hesitant to fund ''Film/MontyPythonsLifeOfBrian'', Music/GeorgeHarrison stepped in with a few million pounds and carte blanche for the Pythons to do whatever they want, purely because he was a Python fan and wanted to see the movie. In many interviews, Harrison would often state that the formation of the Pythons greatly helped him overcome the shock of the dissolution of Music/TheBeatles. Creator/EricIdle later described it as "the most expensive movie ticket ever purchased."
50** Rock bands such as Music/PinkFloyd, Music/JethroTull and Music/LedZeppelin, all Python fans, helped to finance ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'', along with Tony Stratton-Smith, who headed Creator/CharismaRecords, which distributed their comedy albums. Pink Floyd, in fact, were such huge fans of the Pythons, that they would often halt recording sessions just to watch ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus''. The film still ran out of money, hence the GainaxEnding and CoconutEffect gags, yet became a box office success.
51** Subverted, however, with ''Film/MontyPythonsTheMeaningOfLife''. When the Pythons pitched the film to Creator/{{Universal}}, they only gave the studio a poem and a budget, but no screenplay. Amazingly, Universal picked it up right away. What makes this a subversion, however, is that Universal actually had an ulterior motive when they picked up the film. The thinking was that if Universal green lit the film, they could then sign up every major American comedian to work for the studio simply on the grounds that they worked with the Pythons. As then Universal president Thom Mount later told Eric Idle, "It was a sprout to catch a mackerel."
52* As much flak as Fox gets for ScrewedByTheNetwork we must remember that they themselves were one of the premier examples of NetworkToTheRescue. After all, they backed ''Series/TheXFiles''. And this was at a time when if anyone was going to back ScienceFiction it had to be the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' mold, which it certainly wasn't. And no one involved was a name, not the creator, not the producers, and least of all the stars.
53* While ''Series/{{CSI}}'' and its [[Series/CSIVerse spin-offs]] are mainstay hits on TV, there was a time when a forensics-based PoliceProcedural was considered geeky ScienceFiction at best. CBS took the chance on it, only after much hand-wringing and after the other major networks passed.
54* When networks either turned it down or imposed stupid limits on ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', the studio decided to make it syndicated, ''and'' renew it despite a poor first season. The studio gave the producers of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' almost complete freedom to deconstruct a gigantic franchise.
55* Although ''Series/{{Castle|2009}}'' started off slow, and it would've been easy for ABC to cancel it, the network stuck with it, and it kept going for seven more seasons, shattering the so-called "[[Creator/NathanFillion Fillion Curse]]".
56* Disney acquired the rights to ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' as part of a larger buyout, and while they continued the show they never really knew what to do with it. It eventually got to the point where they stopped airing reruns, scheduled the show in a routinely-preempted [[FridayNightDeathSlot Death Slot]], and gave up on new episodes in favor of ReCut old ones. Then Saban, the original owner of the franchise, came in and bought the rights back specifically on the grounds that Disney was wasting its potential. Since the move to Nickelodeon, ratings for the show have more than tripled. In fact, ''Samurai,'' which aired at noon on Saturday, actually outperformed the prime-time schedules for both Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel during its run.
57* When ''Series/{{Glee}}'' was initially picked up, no one thought it would work simply because there had been so many other musical shows that had failed miserably, but FOX had total faith in it. The show is a ratings giant and had been nominated for ''19 EMMYS''. Look who's laughing now!
58* CBS rejected the first pilot of ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' but liked some of the ideas in it enough to ask them to do a second pilot, ultimately leading to a giant hit for the network.
59* ''Series/RedDwarf'' was rejected by BBC London multiple times, and would never have seen the light of day if BBC Manchester hadn't decided to give it a shot. HilarityEnsued. Eight series later, it became another cancelled-at-a-cliffhanger series as the Beeb dropped the series entirely. It wasn't until a decade later that digital channel Dave commissioned new episodes. It was a pretty good partnership for both the channel and the franchise, to put it lightly.
60* After NBC canceled both daytime and primetime editions of ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'' in 1963, ABC stepped in and picked it up. But due to the network's budget issues and low affiliate numbers, it was canceled after two years. ABC had better success in 1968 nabbing ''Series/LetsMakeADeal'' from NBC.
61* Fred Silverman, who was CBS's then vice president for programming, canceled ''[[Series/{{Pyramid}} The $10,000 Pyramid]]'' in 1974 after only a year as NBC's ''Jeopardy!'' (which NBC programmer Lin Bolen tried to mercy-kill by slotting it against ''Pyramid'' and failed) was beating it. Five weeks later, ABC Entertainment president Martin Starger nabbed ''Pyramid'' and it not only had a six-year run on ABC but a nighttime version and an Emmy win. The real kicker, however, was that Silverman later replaced Starger in 1975, causing him to now see the cancellation as an awful ink blot on an otherwise distinguished career at CBS. In addition, even before ABC picked up the daytime version, Bud Grant, CBS's then vice president for daytime programming, actually disagreed with the cancellation decision and before he carried it out, he gave series creator and executive producer Bob Stewart the phone number for Viacom, a syndication firm founded by CBS, and suggested to him that he have them help stage the weekly nighttime version in the first place. ''Pyramid'' later did a TakeThat against Silverman during the show's GrandFinale with a mock category named "Hit Shows on NBC-TV", a not so subtle jab at the fact that Silverman, now working as president and CEO of NBC, was green lighting flop after flop on the network.
62* The CW canceled ''The Game'' after three seasons. BET picked it up, and when they premiered the fourth season nearly two years later, it ended up being the biggest sitcom telecast on cable in history, drawing over 7 million viewers.
63* When ''Series/DueSouth'' premiered in 1994 on CBS, it was continually shifted around on the network's schedule and had episodes pre-empted (this, despite the fact that the show was at one point garnering better ratings than ''Series/{{Friends}}'' in the U.S., and the fact that, until ''Series/{{Flashpoint}}'' came along in 2009, ''South'' was the highest-rated Canadian-made program on American television). CBS ended up cancelling (then [[UnCancelled un-cancelling]]) the show three times before they pulled the plug aat the end of the second season, but the Canadian television station Creator/{{CTV}} (along with foreign investors) picked up the rights to the show and co-financed it for two more seasons.
64* [=FamilyNet=] put the musical anthology The Venue in the FridayNightDeathSlot in January 2011 with the intention to drop its Saturday Night slot the very next month. They apparently listened to the fans and kept the Saturday Night airing due to the popularity. However, they took it off the air altogether in favor of [[{{Glurge}} Live at Oak Tree]]
65* ''[[Creator/StewartLee Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle]]'' underwent a mix of rescued/[[ScrewedByTheNetwork screwed]] [[Creator/TheBBC by the BBC]]. According to Lee, he was summoned by the Beeb to produce a series with no need to do a pilot. He was in two minds, not wanting his manager's studio to make the show, but a BBC in-house studio. By the time he got around to telling the BBC, they now wanted to see a pilot, and eventually cancelled the non-existent series they commissioned in the first place. A couple of years later, the BBC again asked Leeto produce a new comedy series... thankfully this got made.
66* ''For Your Love'' was originally aired on NBC and cancelled after six episodes, it was then picked up by the WB and ran for another four seasons. It's rather surprising that they stuck with a show that so few people seemed to watch, you rarely ever hear FYL mentioned when people are talking about WB shows (not to mention the WB was almost as infamous as Fox for cancelling shows left and right), they even renewed the show after it suffered a 70% ratings decline during the third season. Though it did kinda get screwed during its last couple of years on the network as it was regularly shifted around the schedule and six episodes of the fifth season (including the series finale) were not aired, though TVOne later picked up the series for reruns and aired the missing episodes.
67* The WB similarly rescued ''Series/SisterSister'' after ABC cancelled it after its second season. It'd have four more seasons on its new network.
68* Subverted with ''Series/{{Airwolf}}''. Creator/USANetwork tried to rescue it from Creator/{{CBS}}' cancellation but had NoBudget to do so: they were forced to use stock footage to cover up the fact that they ''didn't actually have the helicopter''. The fact that said footage was [[StockFootageFailure painfully obvious]] and that they couldn't afford any of the show's stars didn't help matters. The show was dead for good at the end of that season.
69* ''Series/HappyEndings'', in a way. The ratings were so bad that Damon Wayans Jr. was already filming [[Series/NewGirl a pilot for a new show]]. The show managed to get a renewal for a second, much to everyone's surprise. The show was then renewed for a third season but suffered a shuffle to the FridayNightDeathSlot. Averted after it was canceled-there was talk of other networks picking it up but this failed to materialize. Damon Wayans Jr. ended up getting back onto ''New Girl'' when ''Happy Endings'' ended.
70* ''Series/CougarTown'' was cancelled by ABC while airing the third season, shortly after TBS picked up the rights to the show and aired three more further seasons.
71* A number of TV ratings-examining websites such as TV By the Numbers have noted that the US networks were remarkably hesitant to cancel underperforming series during the early weeks of the 2012-13 TV season, with shows such as ''Series/LastResort'' and ''Series/TheMobDoctor'', which in prior years might have been cancelled within a few weeks, being given a chance to run longer. The debate is whether this was due to attempting to recoup costs for the shows, or was indicative of a lack of replacement programming at that particular time.
72* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' likely would not have had a [[Series/TorchwoodMiracleDay fourth series]] if the US network Creator/{{Starz}} hadn't agreed to co-produce it with the BBC (especially given that Fox had rejected plans to produce its own version).
73* There are far too many to list here, but during the 1950s and 1960s (and less frequently in later decades) there have been many occasions where a series has been cancelled by one network only to be immediately picked up by another. Two random examples of this are ''Series/GetSmart'' and ''Series/TheBionicWoman'', both of which were able to continue for another season thanks to a "white knight" network picking them up. Some programs, such as game shows and soap operas, extended their runs for many years thanks to changing networks.
74* ''Series/{{Taxi}}'' never got good ratings, but kept being renewed primarily due to critical acclaim and support from ABC, and then to NBC for a final season.
75* The pilot for ''Series/TheBradyBunch'' was rejected by all three networks: ABC wanted to lengthen the pilot into a 2-hour movie, CBS wanted the first few episodes to focus on the courtship, and NBC found the ending with the parents bringing the kids on the honeymoon trip silly and unrealistic. Finally, ABC changed its mind and accepted the pilot as it was.
76* ''Series/TheBigComfyCouch'' is available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video, but the episode titles are all mixed up. Thankfully though, its distributor, [=FilmRise=], made the entire series available to watch for free on Website/YouTube in 2019, and all of the episodes are labeled correctly there.
77* ''Series/WalkerTexasRanger'' was originally produced by [[Creator/TheCannonGroup Cannon Television]], but after the first four episodes they ran into financial difficulties - CBS, the show's home, then agreed to pick up the tab themselves.
78* After ABC cancelled ''Series/{{Nashville}}'' on May 2016 with the finale ending with a {{Cliffhanger}}, CMT picked it up and renewed it for a fifth season a month later.
79* The final eight episodes of ''Series/DontTrustTheBInApartment23'' premiered on Creator/{{LOGO}} after ABC canceled and pulled the show.
80* ''Series/{{The Muppets|2015}}'' was cancelled by ABC in May of 2016 due to budget cuts and the controversy over how the show wasn't kid-friendly. Two years later, [[https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/21/17036468/disney-the-muppets-tv-series-reboot-streaming-service Disney announced that there would be another Muppet TV show]] in the works, this time on their own streaming service.
81* ''Series/TheRedGreenShow'': Creator and star Steve Smith credited the {{Creator/CBC}} both for giving the show a bigger budget (as he put it, "now we could really go nuts") and also for putting an end to the grief he had for the first few years dealing with Executive Meddling and trying to find airtime for the show.
82* ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'': FX took a chance on a little sitcom written by and starring a group of no-name comedic actors. The first season made almost no impression on the general public. Rather than axing it outright, the station executives mandated that the creators find a bigger-name star to join the cast and attract attention. They managed to land Danny [=DeVito=], and the show quickly caught on, becoming one of the longest-running sitcoms of all time.
83* Multiple European Creator/{{HBO}} and Creator/HBOMax originals [[https://variety.com/2022/tv/global/hbo-max-europe-originals-development-1235308730/ were removed from the HBO Max streaming service and/or had their production halted in 2022]] as a consequence of the Creator/WarnerBrosDiscovery merger. Fortunately though, Creator/SkyShowtime (a Europe-exclusive streaming service co-owned by Creator/ParamountGlobal and Creator/NBCUniversal) [[https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/10/23548061/hbo-max-skyshowtime-comcast-paramount-european-streaming-wars acquired streaming rights to 21 of those shows]] (including both already-released titles and unreleased ones) and is currently in the process of releasing them all, preventing them from lingering in KeepCirculatingTheTapes territory.

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