"I’d like to thank our dozens and dozens of viewers." -
Tina Fey, accepting the Best Comedy Emmy for
30 Rock
An intelligent, well written show, usually a subtle blend of comedy and drama, beloved of a devoted group of fans and critics. So why did it never have a chance? (Or at best, struggled in the ratings for a couple seasons.)
Well, either the mainstream just isn't interested in this show, the network never even gives it a chance to build an audience (usual
translation
: it's on
FOX)... or it's created by
Tim Minear or Judd Apatow. Sometimes, someone high up at the network takes a dislike to the show and
does everything in his power to kill it. Or perhaps sometimes the show really is bad and this is a case where the
Viewers really are Morons, and would rather blame network mishandling than admit that most people really don't share their opinion.
If the show is lucky enough to be shown on a cable network in reruns, it may build up a bigger following there than it ever had in its first run.
Examples aren't limited to US television, as many shows have developed considerable followings in Canada, the UK and other parts of the EU, even after they have been cancelled and re-aired in other parts of the world.
The grand phoenix of this syndrome is
Family Guy, which, after being cancelled due to poor
ratings (twice) caused by the network
assigning the show a shaky time slot, was
brought back from the dead (again), completely intact, years later, due to simply outstanding ratings in reruns on
Cartoon Network and high DVD sales.
See also
The Firefly Effect. Contrast
Long Runners.
Examples:
- Action
- The Adventures Of Brisco County Jr
- American Dreams
- American Gothic
- Arrested Development, although this show managed at least 3 seasons, about 2 1/2 more than most of the others on this list, it still stung because of the massive positive critical response and awards won. The failure of this show to attract an audience is usually blamed on Fox's marketing and not the show itself.
- The Black Donnellys
- Brimstone
- Carnivale
- Century City
- Class of 3000
- Clerks The Animated Series, which from the very beginning had basically no real time slot. Only two episodes were aired.
- Clone High
- The Critic
- Cupid; the ABC dramedy, not the CBS reality show.
- Dark Angel
- Dead Like Me
- Deadwood
- The original series of Doctor Who is arguably both a Long Runner and Too Good To Last. It was cancelled just as it was getting interesting again after a long slump.
- Drawn Together
- Drive: three episodes over an eight-day period, then gone.
- Eerie, Indiana, which got good enough ratings during the reruns that they produced a sequel--which had to star new characters because the original actors for the original characters had aged out of being suitable for the parts.
- East Side/West Side was about a social worker who focused on the problems of the inner city and was probably the first American series to seriously address racism. It managed to win an Emmy, but is largely forgotten today.
- Exosquad
- Fillmore
- Firefly; see The Firefly Effect.
- Frank's Place
- Freakazoid
- Freaks And Geeks
- Freakylinks
- Futurama, much like The Critic, was screwed by Fox, airing four seasons over five years but shifting back and forth in days and timeslots and occasionally preempted altogether for months at a time.
- Get Ed: not renewed after its first season, despite the fact that the finale had a Cliff Hanger
- God The Devil And Bob
- The Handler
- Harsh Realm: FOX gave this one a harsh treatment, canceling this after 4 episodes.
- Invader Zim; Executive Meddling was the culprit here.
- Invasion
- Joan Of Arcadia: popular, but in the wrong demographic.
- Kitchen Confidential
- Max Headroom
- Megas XLR
- Miracles
- Mission Hill
- While rare a Japanese example: Mobile Suit Gundam got poor ratings due to the fact that it was the first Real Robot series. It was cancelled and Tomino had to quickly improvise an ending. Due to good re-run ratings the show was re-cut (with some new animation) into 4 movies, and Z Gundam was made.
- My So Called Life
- The Knights Of Prosperity
- The Odyssey, a Mind Screwy Ontological Mystery for kids produced by the Sci Fi Channel. Not to be confused with Odyssey 5 (below) or Homer's original epic.
- Odyssey 5
- The Others
- The Outer Limits (the 1960s original)
- Police Squad: One of the grand-daddies of this phenomenon, from the early 1980s.
- Probe
- Profit
- ReBoot
- Relativity
- Remember WENN: Ran 3 seasons, but on AMC.
- SatAM Sonic The Hedgehog, which was intentionally killed by Fox scheduling Power Rangers into the same time slot to steal its ratings. Twice.
- Space Above And Beyond
- Sports Night
- An even earlier example of this trope would be Star Trek The Original Series, which was to be cancelled after its second season due to poor ratings, was revived by a Fan Campaign for a third (and argurably, the poorest) season, then was brought back in a updated form with Star Trek The Next Generation.
- Time Squad
- The Inside
- Tru Calling
- Twin Peaks-though it did kinda sell out near the end.
- Undeclared
- Vengeance Unlimited
- Veronica Mars is right on the borderline, with three seasons on UPN/the CW network.
- When Things Were Rotten: 1975 Robin Hood farce created by Mel Brooks (later inspiring his Robin Hood: Men in Tights).
- Wonderfalls
- Blade (for that matter, just about any original programming aired on Spike that isn't UFC or TNA related)
- Portal (the creator was not shy about letting fans know that it was cancelled due to personal differences between himself and the network head, not due to ratings.)
- Non-television example, from the era of Radio Drama: The Stan Freberg Show (1957).
The observant reader will note that the vast majority of
Too Good To Last shows are from the last 10-15 years. This is likely because of the increased emphasis on ratings above all else. On the other hand, the list might be biased toward the past decade because shows like this have an unfortunate tendency to fall off the face of the earth upon cancellation, so our ability to recall and report them is inversely proportional to how long ago they aired.
There's always been an emphasis on ratings in television, but it seems to have become much more pronounced since the early 1990s. It is widely commented upon that
Cheers was
dead last in the ratings among all regular series in its first season (1982-83), and that a show doing that badly today would almost certainly be cancelled within its first month or two. However, the
Too Good To Last effect is not entirely exclusive to 1990 or later, and a few examples in the list (
Police Squad,
Max Headroom) are prior to that.
Another theory is that the advent of the Internet and the explosion of cable channels has made it harder for these too-soon cancelled shows to be forgotten.
Exceptions, shows that made it to the finale or are still on air:
- Angel, though it should be noted that it was still cut short, causing the writers to rush and jam about three seasons of extended plotlines into the half a season they had left to get a finale out.
- Could also be seen as the embodiment of this trope, as the actual reason the network gave for canceling the show was explicitly that it was too good.
- Avatar The Last Airbender, so far, though the long hiatus is suggesting that Nick stopped caring or saving it for sweeps. Episodes have begun airing in seemingly every country BUT America at this point, but at least they're airing.
- Babylon 5, and even then, it almost was canceled before its story arc ended (in fact, it did have to curtail its original 5-year arc to 4, just in case it was). Its spin-off Crusade didn't share this luck however, and was canceled half a season into a 5 season arc.
- The re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer
- Farscape only received a conclusion due to a massive outporing of fan support after its cancellation. During its run, it was repeatedly shifted to various unfavourable (and often unreliable) time slots, and at times ran out of order, by its Australian broadcaster, Channel Nine... which also happened to be a co-producer of the show, creating. (Rumour has it that this, and similar treatment for other science-fiction series, was due to a disagreement between the network's owner, who liked science fiction, and the scheduler, who didn't).
- Notably led to one of the heads of the Sci-Fi Network making an ass of himself when he stated "If everyone that wrote in had actually watched the show, it wouldn't have been canceled." Apparently he had not yet heard of Ti Vo (which had been around for several years by this point). Interestingly enough, Sci-Fi Network now schedules their shows to start slightly after their scheduled time, runs network eyecatches in the middle of commercial breaks, and other little tricks that all seem designed to frustrate people with Ti Vo and similar DV Rs. "Take That, people who enjoy our programming!"
- What this troper found more annoying was that the show really wouldn't have needed the extra mini-series to conclude it had the last thirty or so seconds of the final episode not been included - the show came to a fairly satisfying conclusion (although, with a show like that, it never really finishes it will just stop at a point which seems comfortable). Then, having done that, John and Aeryn get BLOWN UP by a random spaceship out of nowhere and then the credits roll. This troper was unamused...
- This may be a case of YMMV because this troper felt that the completely random disintigration of the leads just as she agreed to marry him was perfectly in keeping with Farscape's general series attitude. Farscape was never a show for tying everything up neatly.
- Heroes, so far, largely thanks to the network getting off its duff for once and promoting the hell out of it.
- Northern Exposure
- Oz
- PushingDaisies is an amazing example. ABC had the foresight to promote it energetically. But it was interrupted mid-season [along with many other shows] due to a writers' strike. But the show had received critical acclaim, won a number of awards, and has a devoted fan following, so it has been renewed for a second season.
- Seinfeld. It went 9 seasons and was ended by its creator with a finale in its prime.
- The Shield
- Six Feet Under
- The Sopranos
- Extras
- To be fair, the last three examples are helped by HBO's lack of dependence on outside sponsors or accountability to the FCC.
- Daria, though some fans claim that MTV tried to kill the series during the third season.
- Mystery Science Theater 3000, mostly due to its simple premise (guys watching movies and making fun of them), low production costs, and loyal fanbase.
- South Park
- Eureka. Fans kept expecting this to happen to it, and several times thought it quietly HAD, with the long wait between the first and second season and no info out of the network. But now Sci-Fi has ordered a third season (short due to the strike) and a fourth season. It seems inconceivable, but a network might actually be learning from its mistakes.
- Undergrads
- JAG was first aired on NBC, and then canceled after the first season. CBS then picked it up and showed it for another nine years.
It's notable that of the exceptions, only four were aired on non-cable networks. A series that is
Too Good To Last may have better chances on cable than on broadcast networks, in part because cable doesn't demand ratings as high in the first place for the show to be considered a success.
