History Main / OnlyBarelyRenewed

* ''Series/{{CSI NY}}'' seems to have been this for season 8. It wasn't confirmed as renewed until the last possible moment and got 18 episodes for season 8. Season 9 was even closer-CBS said it was very close as to whether to renew it or ''Series/CSIMiami''. Ultimately, it came down to CSI NY being cheaper to produce and wanting to use it to help with a night of New York themed shows.

* ''Series/{{Hannibal}}'' was given the 9 o'clock Thursday slot, which is notorious at NBC for getting bad ratings, often resulting in the untimely death of the shows (for context, the show ''Series/{{Hannibal}}'' replaced in the time slot was ''Do No Harm'', which had the ''lowest premiere ratings in TV history''). Predictably, the show (while well-received by critics and audiences) never had that great of ratings, and there was much speculation that it would either be cancelled or moved to a different network before NBC eventually decided to renew it due to large DVR numbers and an incredibly passionate social media fanbase. Also a factor; European financing from France's Gaumont studio and Sony's AXN network, which meant that NBC could easily stomach the ratings issues because the international distributors paid most of the costs and NBC only paid a spare licensing fee and could keep most of the ad revenue, along with Amazon paying NBC to having exclusive rights to stream it in-season and long after.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Chowder}}'''s third and final season was renewed for 20 episodes, but later shortened to only 9. In this case, season three of ''Flapjack'' might have been shortened as well.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheMarvelousMisadventuresOfFlapjack'' got a six-episode third season

* WordOfGod states the second season of ''WesternAnimation/WabbitALooneyTunesProduction'' ([[NewSeasonNewName renamed]] ''The New Looney Tunes Show'') was produced as a result of the executives at Warner Bros. loving the pitch for the first season's final episode "Porky's Duck-livery Service", despite the show having seen middling success.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' had been suffering from increasingly poor sales for years, with a particular low point being the [[InternetBackdraft disastrous reception of the Dreams of the First Age boxset]]. After a while, the release schedule was cut down dramatically, with one book even containing what was likely a note implying the official discontinuation of the line. Many of the freelance writers went into extreme damage control, releasing reams of free setting and mechanics info in a desperate attempt to keep interest in the line from flagging long enough for them to get a last few books out. The books proved to be ''tremendous'' successes (with the last jumping to the top of sales listing within days), allowing the line to be secured for the issuing of a third edition.

* The last season of ''Series/{{Charmed}}''. Not only did they have to undo the ending of the previous season, which could have been a final ending, but budget restrictions meant not being able to have Leo in most of the episodes.

* All evidence indicated ''Series/{{Dollhouse}}'' wouldn't get a second season--poor ratings, lukewarm critical reception until halfway through the season, Fox's decision not to air the planned season finale (it was released on the DVD), [[TheFireflyEffect the fact that it was a Whedon/Minear production on Fox]], and so on. It got renewed anyway; but the second season was the last. The second season may have been simply because the execs were GenreSavvy enough to know they'd get complaints if they canceled it after only one season.

* ''ComicBook/SpiderGirl''. The original run 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. [[ComicBook/OneMoreDay Ironically]], Creator/JoeQuesada has had a lot to do with Mayday Parker's continued existence.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheMarvelousMisadventuresOfFlapjack'' got a third season. However, it only consisted of 6 episodes, and was quickly burned off.
* ''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.

* WordOfGod states the second season of ''WesternAnimation/WabbitALooneyTunesProduction'' ([[NewSeasonNewName renamed]] ''The New Looney Tunes Show'') has produced as a result of the executives at Warner Bros. loving the pitch for the first season's final episode "Porky's Duck-livery Service", despite the show having seen middling success.

* ''ComicBook/SpiderGirl''. 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. Ironically, ''Creator/JoeQuesada'' has had a lot to do with Spider-Girl getting to continue its run.

* ''Series/{{Titus}}'' subverted this, in that it was just barely not renewed. Creator/ChristopherTitus recalls in one of his stand-up comedy specials that he got a phone call on the last day that his show could have been renewed at 11:52 PM, eight minutes before the deadline, telling him that his show was cancelled. As he noted, "I pissed off [the network executives] so bad, I cost somebody sleep."

* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' had been suffering from increasingly poor sales for years, with a particular low point being the [[InternetBackdraft disastrous reception of the Dreams of the First Age boxset]]. After a while, the release schedule was cut down dramatically, with one book even containing what was likely a note implying the official discontinuation of the line. Many of the freelance writers went into extreme damage control, releasing reams of free setting and mechanics info in a desperate attempt to keep interest in the line from flagging long enough for them to get a last few books out. Said books proved to be ''tremendous'' successes (with the last jumping to the top of sales listing within days), allowing the line to be secured for the issuing of a third edition.

* It's completely possible that without the entire drama where ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' moved to {{UPN}}, ''Series/GilmoreGirls'' would have received a bare renewal for the second season as it was barely holding on in its original timeslot leading off Thursdays against ''Series/{{Survivor}}'' and ''Series/{{Friends}}''. Thankfully it became a shoo-in after that in their new Tuesday timeslot for the next six seasons, replacing ''Buffy'', which stuck in the same slot on UPN for two seasons.

* The teen GameShow ''Series/PeerPressure'' had three seasons, but the second and third season were just repackaged reruns of the first season 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)

* ''Series/{{Community}}'' got renewed for the fourth season despite lukewarm ratings from the third season. Catch is, it only got a half season's worth of episodes ordered... [[FridayNightDeathSlot and will be moved to Friday nights with a lead-in consisting of Whitney.]] Huzzah? ''Community'' later had the start of its season delayed to put it on Thursday nights (while ''Whitney'' went to Wednesdays) due to the failures of ''Animal Practice'' and ''Guys With Kids''. So maybe there could be a happy ending after all. ''After'' the Season 4 finale already aired, 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. 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 for a sixth season on the last day before the contracts of the main cast members expired.

* ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' initially went ahead despite resistance from most of NBC and Creator/LarryDavid himself. After the pilot aired, NBC was so ambivalent about the show that they only ordered four episodes for the first season. It wasn't until season three that it showed any promise at all, and season four that it was legitimately successful.

* ''Series/{{Hannibal}}'' was given the 9 o'clock Thursday slot, which is notorious at NBC for getting bad ratings, often resulting in the untimely death of the shows (for context, the show ''Series/{{Hannibal}}'' replaced in the time slot was ''Do No Harm'', which had the ''lowest premiere ratings in TV history''). Predictably, the show (while well-recieved by critics and audiences) never had that great of ratings, and there was much speculation that it would either be cancelled or moved to a different network before NBC eventually decided to renew it due to large DVR numbers and an incredibly passionate social media fanbase.

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 UsefulNotes/{{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. In industry-speak, these shows are referred to as being "on the bubble," and if it's a show that seems to be on the bubble every single season, will sometimes garner the name "bubble series," taken from the fact that a soap bubble can pop at any second.

* ''[[VideoGame/TonyHawkProSkater 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 [[TheyJustDidntCare ignored fan demand not to use the skateboard peripheral]]. Finally, ''Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5'' finally acquiesced to not use the skateboard peripheral anymore after it too barely got renewed, but it was an ObviousBeta full of {{Game Breaking Bug}}s. As a result, the future of the series is looking rather bleak.

* ''[[VideoGame/TonyHawkProSkater 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.

* ''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 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!

* ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'', which was a critical smash but was watched by roughly nobody, only barely got a second season -- and then got a third season by an even slimmer margin -- then finally, to no one's surprise, was gone. Fans still debate whether Creator/{{Fox}} deserves respect for sticking with a failing show for so long, or criticism for [[ScrewedByTheNetwork not giving it much of a chance in the first place]]. The first season won the Emmy for best comedy just before the back nine was ordered. It was nominated for the Emmy for season 2 and 3. That may have been the reason it hung on. In an outtake on the season 2 DVD David Cross goes on a long rant about how Fox should learn how to market an Emmy winning comedy. It is awesome.

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

* Thirteen weeks into its run in 1963, NBC was about to axe ''Series/TheMatchGame''. 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 September 1969.

->''and he runs and he runs and then dives and TOUCHDOWN PANTHERS WIN WOOOOO!!!!1111!!!! YES! I WANT TO GO BUY SOMETHING Creator/{{NBC}} ADVERTISES! WOOOOO!!!!''
-->--Drunken Bee of TelevisionWithoutPity, pimping for ''Series/FridayNightLights'''s renewal

* ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'', which was a critical smash but was watched by roughly nobody, only barely got a second season -- and then got a third season by an even slimmer margin -- then finally, to no one's surprise, was gone. Fans still debate whether {{Fox}} deserves respect for sticking with a failing show for so long, or criticism for [[ScrewedByTheNetwork not giving it much of a chance in the first place]].
** The first season won the Emmy for best comedy just before the back nine was ordered. It was nominated for the Emmy for season 2 and 3. That may have been the reason it hung on. In an outtake on the season 2 DVD David Cross goes on a long rant about how Fox should learn how to market an Emmy winning comedy. It is awesome.
* Both ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' on Creator/{{CBS}} and ''MyNameIsEarl'' on Creator/{{NBC}} only reluctantly got confirmed for third seasons at the last minute. Ditto ''Series/FridayNightLights'' for its second.
* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}''. Seasons five through seven were only barely renewed by NBC, and generally wound up airing as a mid-season replacement. Season seven (intended to be the final season) was shortened by the writer's strike and aired out of order. ABC (who actually owns the series) stepped in and aired the eighth season (considered by most to be an improvement over six and seven), which officially wrapped up JD's storyline.So five seasons "on the bubble" between two networks.
** The eighth season was still ScrewedByTheNetwork. They continually changed up timeslots, showed new episodes back to back, rarely did re-runs of the new episodes and when they did, they ''weren't'' back to back, or they were out of order.
** [[PostScriptSeason Season 9]].

* ''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 Series/AmericanIdol causing it's ratings to drop and then suddenly canceling it out of nowhere.
* ''Series/{{Angel}}'' was borderline as of the end of its fourth season. In an attempt to jumpstart the ratings, the producers changed the show's direction completely ''and'' brought over the popular character Spike from ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. It wasn't enough, and the fifth season was the last.
** Creator/JossWhedon said in an interview that an attempt to avert this trope led to the show's cancellation. WB's refusal to renew the show until the last possible minute created problems for the cast and crew, as it left them no time to seek new work if the show weren't renewed. Joss requested a quicker decision for the staff's sake, and WB decided to cancel.

* ''NewsRadio'' was in this position ''every single year'' of its five seasons.
* It's completely possible that without the entire drama where ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' moved to {{UPN}}, ''GilmoreGirls'' would have received a bare renewal for the second season as it was barely holding on in its original timeslot leading off Thursdays against ''Series/{{Survivor}}'' and ''{{Friends}}''. Thankfully it became a shoo-in after that in their new Tuesday timeslot for the next six seasons, replacing ''Buffy'', which stuck in the same slot on UPN for two seasons.

* ''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 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!

* ''ComicBook/SpiderGirl''. 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.
** Ironically, ''JoeQuesada'' has had a lot to do with Spider-Girl getting to continue its run.
* Creator/AdultSwim's truly [[DadaComics bizarre]] ''WesternAnimation/XavierRenegadeAngel'' somehow has a second season.
* All evidence indicated ''Series/{{Dollhouse}}'' wouldn't get a second season--poor ratings, lukewarm critical reception until halfway through the season, Fox's decision not to air the planned season finale (it was released on the DVD), [[TheFireflyEffect the fact that it was a Whedon/Minear production on Fox]], and so on. It got renewed anyway; but the second season was the last.
** The second season may have been simply because the execs were GenreSavvy enough to know they'd get complaints if they canceled it after only one season.

* The only reason the remake of ''[[{{V-2009}} V]]'' got a second season was because all of the other new dramas on ABC that year bombed.
** ABC later cut the order to just 10 episodes.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheMarvelousMisadventuresOfFlapjack'' got a third season. However, it only consisted of 6 episodes, and was quickly burned off.
** ''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.
* In a video game example, there's ''[[TonyHawkProSkater 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.

* ''Series/{{Nikita}}'' was the lowest rated show on the CW for most of it's second season, it got renewed regardless, it's rumoured to be because of international sales.
** The ratings dropped even lower in the 3rd season, but it still got renewed for a final 6 episode run.
* ''Series/{{Community}}'' got renewed for the fourth season despite lukewarm ratings from the third season. Catch is, it only got a half season's worth of episodes ordered....[[FridayNightDeathSlot and will be moved to Friday nights with a lead-in consisting of Whitney.]] Huzzah?
** ''Community'' later had the start of its season delayed to put it on Thursday nights (while ''Whitney'' went to Wednesdays) due to the failures of ''Animal Practice'' and ''Guys With Kids''. So maybe there could be a happy ending after all.
** ''After'' the Season 4 finale already aired, 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.
** 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 for a sixth season on the last day before the contracts of the main cast members expired.

* TabletopRPG example: ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' had been suffering from increasingly poor sales for years, with a particular low point being the [[InternetBackdraft disastrous reception of the Dreams of the First Age boxset]]. After a while, the release schedule was cut down dramatically, with one book even containing what was likely a note implying the official discontinuation of the line. Many of the freelance writers went into extreme damage control, releasing reams of free setting and mechanics info in a desperate attempt to keep interest in the line from flagging long enough for them to get a last few books out. Said books proved to be ''tremendous'' successes (with the last jumping to the top of sales listing within days), allowing the line to be secured for the issuing of a third edition.

* 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 September 1969.

* This can probably be considered for ''WesternAnimation/BlackDynamite'''s second season. After low ratings and mixed critical reviews, it was renewed, but the budget was cut (as evident by the switch in studios from {{Creator/Titmouse}} to in-house production at Cartoon Network), new episodes were moved to [[FridayNightDeathSlot Saturdays]], and they were given very little promotion. Eventually, the second season turned out to be the show's last.

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. In industry-speak, these shows are referred to as being "on the bubble," and if it's a show that seems to be on the bubble every single season, will sometimes garner the name "bubble series," taken from the fact that a soap bubble can pop at any second.