History Main / OnlyBarelyRenewed

Usually this marks the final season of a show -- even the final partial season. Better plan on only running thirteen episodes[[note]]or whatever the magic number for syndication is[[/note]] [[Front13Back9 instead of the usual 22-26]]. In the best case scenarios, it leads to a massive hit and a very good career move for the network execs responsible.

* ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' initially went ahead despite resistance from most of NBC and Creator/LarryDavid himself. It wasn't until season three that it showed any promise at all, and season four that it was legitimately successful.

* The original ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' got a third season only because of a massive letter writing campaign; but the third season is not considered that great by many fans. Forty years later, ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' barely got a fourth season because the show runners convinced the studio that they could do it cheaply; in fact the eventual series finale was originally written to cap the third season. Fans tremendously approved the final season-- including many who feel it actually [[GrowingTheBeard grew its beard]] that season, too late to be saved.

* ''ComicBook/{{Spider-Girl}}''. This was barely renewed lots and lots of times, to the point of only dying after 130 issues. It has since had several restarts that get Only Barely Renewed for a little while, before being cancelled and the cycle starts anew.

* Creator/AdultSwim's truly [[DadaComics bizarre]] ''XavierRenegadeAngel'' somehow has a second season.

* ''Series/BeautyAndTheBeast2012'' got terrible ratings in its second season, was the CW's lowest rated series in 2014 and was yanked off the schedule to air the rest of it's episodes in the summer. Somehow it still got renewed for a third season.

* The teen GameShow ''Series/PeerPressure'' had three seasons. In reality, the last two seasons were simply the same episodes but with increasingly obtrusive editing (the "second" season applied DVDCommentary and ClumsyCopyrightCensorship, while the "third" season completely changed the name of the show and edited the audio to try and RetCon it)

* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' has done this on at least ''five separate occasions'', most notably in 1998, when the drastically-budget-cut ''Series/PowerRangersInSpace'' was so popular that it revitalized the viewership figures that had been on the decline for the past few years, and again in 2002 when Creator/{{Disney}} bought the rights and almost put it into reruns, but renewed at the last minute by moving production to the cheaper New Zealand. At one point they actually ''did'' stop production and put it into reruns, after which the (North American) franchise creator promptly bought the rights back and moved it to another network, which has at time of this writing not had any by-a-hair renewals.

** After the fifth season, NBC flat-out cancelled the show - [[http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/06/30/community-lives-season-6-to-air-on-yahoo only to have]] Yahoo pick the show up on the last day before the contracts of the main cast members expired.

** ''WesternAnimation/Chowder'' also got a similar treatment for its third season. Its season was renewed for 20 episodes but only 9 were made and aired. In this case, season three of ''Flapjack'' might have been shortened as well.

* ''Series/Beautyandthebeast2012'' got terrible ratings in its second season, was the CW's lowest rated series in 2014 and was yanked off the schedule to air the rest of it's episodes in the summer. Somehow it still got renewed for a third season.

Some shows are lucky to still be around -- or were, before the axe finally fell. Their ratings were middling or poor or even awful, but the critics liked it, or it had been starting to show signs of a cult following, or it was ''supposed'' to be huge and they're reluctant to give up on it just yet, or the show is nearing an episode count needed for {{syndication}}, or everything else that premiered that year did even worse, or somebody at the network just ''liked'' the darn old thing; at any rate, it just barely got renewed by the skin of its teeth.

* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' and ''Justice League Unlimited'' were the patron saints of this trope. Season one sparked some fears that the show was weaker than what the shows spun off of, largely because they ignored the canon of the Franchise/{{Batman}} and Franchise/{{Superman}} animated series that preceded them. At the end, they re-worked the show to reflect that canon better and felt that this was their swan song, so wrapped up with a big three-part season finale where they blew everything up. Then they got the call that they were renewed for another season and retooled the show into ''Justice League Unlimited''. The producers thought that this would be their last great story and wrapped up dangling threads from ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' as well as some in the previous ''Justice League'', capping it off with a FullyAbsorbedFinale with ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond''. Then they got the call that the series was so good (hands down the best of the entire DCAU) that they got one more season and the final finale was strong enough that fans think it deserved more. The show was basically Only Barely Renewed for three seasons and is considered one of the best shows in WesternAnimation!

Usually this marks the final season of a show -- even the final partial season. Better plan on only running thirteen episodes[[hottip:*:or whatever the magic number for syndication is]] [[Front13Back9 instead of the usual 22-26]]. In the best case scenarios, it leads to a massive hit and a very good career move for the network execs responsible.

Some shows are lucky to still be around -- or were, before the axe finally fell. Their ratings were middling or poor or even awful, but the critics liked it, or it had been starting to show signs of a cult following, or it was ''supposed'' to be huge and they're reluctant to give up on it just yet, or the show is nearing an episode count needed for {{syndication}}, or somebody at the network just ''liked'' the darn old thing; at any rate, it just barely got renewed by the skin of its teeth.

** The second season was mostly because the execs were GenreSavvy enough to know they'd get complaints if they canceled it.

* Thirteen weeks into its run in 1963, NBC was about to axe ''[[MatchGame The Match Game]].'' Seeing nothing left to lose, writer Dick [=DeBartolo=] decided to juice up some of the fill-in-the-blanks as comical and lightly suggestive statements. Viewers picked up on it, and the show ran to Septem,ber 1969.

* ''Series/{{Joey}}'' was a spinoff of ''{{Friends}}'' and got renewed because it was the only NBC show in the 2004 fall season to pull in decent enough ratings to warrant a renewal (the pilot was watched by 18 million viewers), but on the other hand NBC screwed the show in its second season by putting it up against AmericanIdol causing it's ratings to drop and then suddenly canceling it out of nowhere.

* In a video game example, there's ''Tony Hawk's Shred''. Its predecessor Ride sold very badly because of its insistence on a skateboard peripheral that didn't work properly. People didn't think Activision would bother with a sequel after this debacle, especially because competition from EA's Skate series was making the series look tired. Somehow, the series did get renewed for Ride's sequel Shred which ignored fan demand not to use the skateboard peripheral, and the series is on its last legs as a result.

** ''After'' the Season 4 finale already happened, it somehow got renewed for a fifth. It's actually probably a ''good'' thing that NBC's ratings have been suffering recently, as Community was probably only renewed because they had to cut a lot of their new shows that had been failing.