This page is for shows that were cancelled prematurely, as well as shows that were always intended to be limited series.
Let's begin...
Andy Barker, P.I., NBC
Hulu; IMDb; NBC; TV.com; Wikipedia
Andy Richter plays Andy Barker, an accountant who just moved into a new office, which was formerly occupied by a now-retired private investigator named Lew Staziak (who's old school, hard boiled, and kind of crazy). And so people start coming there looking to hire Andy as a P.I. And Lew ends up helping Andy, or else bringing in cases himself, looking for Andy's help. And, well, despite intial reluctance, Andy ends up getting fairly caught up in all this stuff, and he's not bad at it, though he's still obviously more comfortable as an accountant. He's also a pretty mild-mannered, nice guy, with a nice wife named Jenny (who we like), who isn't thrilled about him getting into the dangerous P.I. business. There are also a couple of guys with businesses in the same area as Andy's office: Simon, who runs a video rental store, and who seems fairly dumb and goofy; and Wally, an Afghani immigrant who runs a restaurant or something. But anyway, they end up helping Andy out in his investigations. Though I use the term "help" rather loosely....
And that's about it. It's a quirky premise, an offbeat show, pretty simple, charming, and amusing. Andy's definitely the most sensible person on the show, perhaps the only sensible person (except perhaps for his wife). Really it's all pretty unbelievable, and yet somehow... you end up believing it. Sort of. I dunno, it's just really cute and funny. Alas, it was quickly cancelled, and I didn't even get to see the last couple eps because they aired on a different night than usual.
The Bonnie Hunt Show, CBS
IMDb; TV Tome
A clever and witty and humorous and fast-paced show. Bonnie Hunt (who we've always liked) played a reporter for a TV station in Chicago. Mixed in with the fictional aspects of the show were segments where she did real "person on the street" type interviews. It was a great ensemble show, with some of the same actors from "The Building" (which I think I liked better than this), including Holly Wortell, who we like. I can't think what else to tell you.
The Building, CBS
IMDb; TV Tome
A clever and witty and humorous and fast-paced show. Bonnie Hunt (who we like) played a struggling actress in Chicago. It was a great ensemble show, with actors who would also work with Bonnie on other shows, including "The Bonnie Hunt Show" and "Life With Bonnie" (see comedy 5). I dunno what else to say, except all these shows have a sort of realistic, simple, unpolished feel about them that's rather refreshing. "The Building" is probably my favorite of the shows Bonnie's exec-produced, as well as starring in.
This was a 4-episode limited series, starring Steven Weber as District Attorney David Franks, and Sarah Paulson as his chief deputy D.A., Lisa Patterson, and there was also a deputy D.A. named Mark Camacho... and I'm afraid those are the only characters I remember at all. And I don't really remember any of the storyline, or anything. But I liked it, and maybe it'd be nice to see it again sometime, if I got a chance. It'd be nice to be able to write a decent summary here, anyway.
This 34 year old guy, Joel Larsen, accidentally got shocked by defibrillator paddles and woke up back in the early 80s when he was 14. The only person he told about this was his best friend Pat. Joel tried to change his past (and that of his friends and family) for the better, though it didn't always work out. Not sure what else to say. I had an entry for the show while it was on, but I guess I deleted it. Because I'm an idiot. Now I don't remember it all that well. But it was pretty funny, and we liked Angela Goethals and Natasha Melnick. I should mention that about the same time this premiered, so did That Was Then (IMDb; TV Tome), on ABC. I think it only aired one episode. It was sort of a dramedy about this 30 year old guy who wasn't happy with his life, then woke up 16 again, with a chance to redo things. The way this differed from "Do Over" is that at the end of the episode, he woke up in his own time/age again, and got to see how his life had changed. And it was worse. It might've been interesting to see what would have happened if the show had continued. But it still probably wouldn't have been as good as "Do Over."
This show is very cool, in a very slick way. I pretty much only cared about it while I was actually watching it, but I made sure that I did watch it... and then I quite enjoyed it. And then it would pretty much leave my mind for the week, till the next episode. And then the network just stopped airing it after a few eps, which sucked, because it deserved to last alot longer. I kinda miss it now... Anyway, it's about this high-tech, high-class firm of highly skilled private investigators, called Judd Risk Management. It's run by Harlan Judd, who is himself the slickest of the lot. He seems pretty cool, and amusing, smug, impishly charming, doesn't really seem to take anything terribly seriously. But he really does. Everyone takes their jobs seriously. I never got much of a feel for the other characters, but they're all quite good, and potentially very interesting. The firm includes lead investigators Nora Gage (who we like), Chris Didion (who is also Harlan's best friend), Jeff McCann, and an associate investigator, Meg Bardo (who we like), seems poised to become a lead; surveillance technician Trish Agermeyer (who we like, and with whom Jeff was having an affair); Trish's husband Danny, a field researcher (who left after discovering the affair); and a lawyer, Leslie Town (who we like). Harlan knows someone working for him is a mole for his enemy (former mentor and boss) Clay Burgess, but he doesn't know who it is. He asked Jeff to find out, and he did- it's Nora. But he's not telling Harlan this yet, for fear of his life. Meanwhile, there are plenty of interesting cases for the firm to work on, and it's great fun seeing them do their thing. Wish I could say more....
This show didn't last long at all, and what few episodes there were, I didn't get to see all of them. But it was an absolutely brilliant show. Can't really tell you anything about it, except that it was really brilliant and should have lasted alot longer. Would probably be on drama tier 1 if it had. And now I don't remember it. Dammit.
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, British
BBC; IMDb; official Garth Marenghi website; Save Darkplace (fansite); Sci-Fi Channel; TV.com; Wikipedia
Okay. Well, I had never heard of this, nor of Garth Marenghi, himself. But apparently the show first aired in Britain in 2004. The conceit is that it was originally made in the 1980s, and suppressed by the Powers That Be, until now. But actually, I'm pretty sure it was made around the time it first aired. It's hard to say, though, as most sites seem to like to play along with the myth the show has established about itself. One thing I can tell you is that Garth Marenghi is a fictional character, supposedly a great horror novelist, who wrote and starred in Darkplace, but... like I said, he doesn't really exist. Marenghi is played by a British comedian named Matthew Holness. But whatever, Marenghi and his publisher, Dean Learner (who also doesn't exist; he's played by comedian Richard Ayoade) made this show, Darkplace.
It's set in a hospital called Darkplace. The main character is Dr. Rick Dagless, M.D. (played by Marenghi). His boss is Thornton Reed (played by Learner). Dagless's best buddy is Dr. Lucien Sanchez. There's also a psychic doctor named Liz Asher who just starts at the hospital in the first episode. Anyway, I guess Dagless used to be into the occult, with an old friend who exploded in the first episode. And I think Sanchez is into it too. Dagless, I think, would rather have nothing more to do with such things, but unfortunately, the gates of Hell seem to have opened beneath Darkplace. Or something. So he realizes he has no choice but to deal with all the strange things that will be happening in Darkplace.
The show is framed by Marenghi talking about the show, and interviews with people who were involved in making it. Of course it's all just as fictitious as the actual show. You know, it's a comedy, a spoof of 70s/80s horror shows (Marenghi himself is a spoof of horror novelists). The writing and acting are spectacularly bad. The special effects are bad. It's terribly sexist. Everything about it is just... so... bad. And that's what makes it so hilarious. Hell, even the British accents seem pretty bad to me, despite the fact that everyone involved actually is British. And some of the slang they use, hell, I don't know what they're saying some of the time, I think they just made alot of it up. And Marenghi is so pretentious, yet earnest. He actually seems to believe it's a great show, has no idea how bad everything is, nor that it's sexist, or anything. Dunno what else to say, it's just all so ludicrously ridiculous and cheesy, but it's great.
Greg the Bunny, FOX
Fox Home; IMDb; Toonarific; TV Tome
A funny show, but didn't get a chance to be as good as it might've been. But anyway, Seth Green was in it, and he's one of my favorite actors. Sarah Silverman was in it (we greatly like Sarah Silverman), and Dina Spybey, who we also like. Eugene Levy was in it and real live puppets were in it. So, yay! And stuff.... Oh, and Greg is voiced by series creator Dan Milano, but he sounds like Steve Whitmire (who voiced a bunch of muppets including Rizzo the Rat, Wembley Fraggle, etc.) The show was about a children's TV show, or rather it was about the people and puppets who starred in the show. Greg was a puppet who got a job acting on the show after another puppet died. His best friend was human Jimmy, whose dad was the show's director. I think IFC started doing something with the show... I'm not sure exactly what, since I don't get the channel...
The Jake Effect
Brilliant But Cancelled; IMDb
This show was made in 2003, but never aired. Until 2006, when a marathon of episodes was run on Bravo, as part of its "Brilliant But Cancelled" series. It starred Jason Bateman, just before Arrested Development (see comedy 3). Here he played Jake Galvin, a lawyer who got fed up with constantly defending "evil corporations," and quit to become a high school teacher. His roommate and best friend, Nick Case (who also narrates the show), is still a lawyer at Jake's old firm. Another guy from the firm is named Bankhead, a totally clueless jerk who they both can't stand, but who seems to think they're all friends. Meanwhile, at Jake's new job, there's a fellow teacher named Liza (who we kinda like), who becomes friends with Jake and Nick, and... well, there's a possibility romance might develop between her and Jake at some point. There's also a teacher played by Kyle Gass of Tenacious D, who is more interested in making his students laugh than in actually teaching them anything. And there's a stern principal (or vice principal, whatever) with whom Jake often gets in trouble, usually without really doing anything wrong. And she has an assistant, played by Leslie Grossman, who I never cared for at all on What I Like About You (see comedy 5), but here... well I can't say I like her character, but I think she's very funny. The whole show is... well, brilliantly hilarious and quirky. I especially love Jake and Nick's friendship, and Liza fits in fairly well, I think. Dunno what else to say, except I really wish this show would've gotten a chance....
Karen Sisco, ABC
IMDb; TV Tome; TWoP
I haven't really watched too much of this. But it's not a bad show. The title character is a federal marshall in Miami. She's played by Carla Gugino, who we've always liked. She hunts criminals. It's dramatic, but it can also be funny, and laid back. Her father's a P.I., he's kinda cool I guess, in a Rockford Files kinda way. I dunno what else to say about the show, except that it didn't last long enough.
So there was this New York City cop named Eddie Arlette, who seemed to think he lived on a cop show and was pretty cool. He even had his own catch phrase, "how do you like me so far?" But (theoretically) he didn't live in a cop show (excuse me, it's always confusing to switch between perspectives of viewers and characters, and this time I might be the only one who even thinks the character acted like he thought he was a character even though he wasn't even though technically, from our perspective, he was. Follow?) Anyway, a drug bust went bad, and he got sent to London to try to fix his mess, which he did, and then ended up staying there. He brought his dog Pete, who's pretty hard to live with, and he's sharing a flat with a woman named Fiona Bickerton, who's even harder to live with (but we like her). He's renting the place from her parents, who think she's away at school or something, and she doesn't want them to find out she isn't, so um... yeah, they share the place, but don't really get along. Eddie's new partner is a cop named Monty Pippin, who is a sex addict. Not sure what else to say, but it's a pretty quirky and funny show, and though I didn't watch enough of it, I may get it on dvd someday. It definitely shoulda lasted longer.
Threshold, CBS
CBS; IMDb; TV.com; Wikipedia
Well, perhaps the show wasn't given enough of a chance, but it doesn't bother me much that this was cancelled so soon. After missing a few episodes, I lost interest anyway. It bothered me at first that I was missing eps, but after awhile, I guess I gave up before it even ended. It wasn't a bad show, it definitely had potential. I liked the concept. It was a procedural... and while I'm not usually big into procedural shows, I definitely found the idea of an alien invasion procedural to be an interesting concept. Of course, it was more serial than your standard police or medical procedurals, or whatever. Those usually have stand-alone stories, whereas this show follows a single plotline. Dr. Molley Caffrey (played by Carla Gugino, who we've always liked) wrote contingency plans for lots of different types of potential emergencies. The one for alien invasion- "Threshold"- isn't one she particularly expected to ever have to enact. But then a mysterious multi-dimensional orb appeared on a Naval ship in the Atlantic ocean, and the sounds it made drove the crew crazy and started changing their DNA... so, the government recruited Caffrey and a team of specialists to, you know, deal with things.
The response team is led by Deputy National Security Advisor J.T. Baylock, though his role seemed more supervisory than anything else, I thought. The team also includes Dr. Nigel Fenway (played by Brent Spiner, from Star Trek: The Next Generation - see Trek shows), who was a bitter, thrice-divorced microbiologist; Lucas Pegg, a brilliant young physicist who seems to be pretty scared of all of this (everyone is, but the others don't really let it show so much); Arthur Ramsey, a linguistics expert; and Cavennaugh, a covert operative. Caffrey and her team have to track down the few surviving crew members of the ship that was affected by the alien probe, as their personalities had been altered, and they now seem intent on preparing the way for... something. We don't really know what exactly their plan is, all we really know is that the aliens (who we haven't seen anything of in person) have triple-helix DNA, unlike all life on Earth, which has double-helix DNA. Also, Caffrey, Cavennaugh, and Pegg all briefly saw a video of the probe that affected the crew. Now they're having strange dreams and the affected crew, at least one of them, Gunneson, thinks these three are- or will become- the same as them. But so far they seem okay, for the most part. Anyway, the team also had to try to prevent infected people from exposing even more people to the signal, to infect them. And that's about all I can say. I thought it got a bit boring after awhile, though I expect the plot would've gotten more interesting if the show had continued. But like I said, I just don't really mind so much that it didn't...
Under Suspicion, CBS
IMDb; TV Tome
We like Karen Sillas. Anyway, this was a good show, but I'm not sure what to say about it. Um... it was about police detectives or whatever. I wish I could tell you more. It shoulda lasted longer.
Veritas: The Quest, ABC
IMDb; TV Tome
There's this group called the Veritas Foundation, which mainly seems to be comprised of archaeologists. They're looking for clues to find the truth of civilization developing long before we're led to believe it did, but there's some kind of secret society trying to protect these secrets. It looks like it could be a pretty interesting show, if given a chance to develop. Anyway, the head of Veritas is this guy named Solomon Zond, whose son Nikko (Ryan Merriman, "young Jarod" of Pretender flashbacks) gets kicked out of the latest in a line of boarding schools, then winds up getting enmeshed in his father's secret work, which he had heretofore known nothing about. This despite the fact that when he was a little kid he used to go on archaeological expeditions with his parents. (Nikko's mother died doing the same sort of secret work as Solomon ten years prior to the start of the series, I think.) Not sure what else to say about the show right now except it seems like a sort of cross between X-Files, Indiana Jones, and Tomb Raider, with some James Bond-ish spy tech thrown in. Oh yeah, and we like Nikko's tutor, Juliet. The show hasn't been on for several weeks, and very well may not return for all I know, which is disappointing....
Wonderfalls, FOX
Fox Home; IMDb; TV.com; TWoP; Wikipedia
Jaye (who we sort of like) is a sort of apathetic, disaffected slacker type who works at a souvenir shop in Niagara Falls. And inanimate objects start talking to her, much to her chagrin and annoyance. Telling her to do things she doesn't understand. Things which set off a chain of events which end up helping people in some bizarre way. It's supposed to be this charming, quirky show. I dunno. It was watchable, but I didn't get terribly into it. I definitely would've liked to see it get a full run, so it would've had a chance to go somewhere, plotwise. As it was, it just seemed like a bunch of random stuff happening, much of which might well have happened even without the objects talking to Jaye. In any event... the show deserved to last longer.