Based on the ratings I think I'm the only one that liked the Minority Report series that was on Fox a few years back.
Sci-fi Brilliant but Canceled or little known gems
- Thread starter Gotham Central
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I'm struggling to remember the cast... The only face that is coming up is the steel guy on Legends of Tomorrow now.
(Google, google)
Megan Good's career goes back to 1991, including 52 episodes of My Cousin Skeeter.
"That poor woman"
The male lead was not handsome enough to remember.
'Get back to me after he's done another 10 thousand chin ups.
(Google, google)
Megan Good's career goes back to 1991, including 52 episodes of My Cousin Skeeter.
"That poor woman"
The male lead was not handsome enough to remember.
'Get back to me after he's done another 10 thousand chin ups.
I wanted to check that out, but I still keep forgetting about it. One of these days...
Do be careful about which pilot you watch.
This might be true because I didn't even know there had been a tv show about Minority Report.
I got another show and that is "Legend" made my Micheal Pillar and it starred Richard Dean Anderson and John DeLancie.
I also curious about the "Young Hercules" show that was another spin-off of "Herclules." I never got around to watching it.
Jason
I miss the "Invisible Man" as well as "Now and Again."
I'm gonna throw in some love for two series based on/inspired by Stephen King:
Haven
Under the Dome
I literally stumbled across both series, and fell in love with them almost immediately, although they both fell off my radar due to a lack of time and I have yet to finish watching them in their entirety.
I'm also gonna throw in a mention of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, since I'm surprised no one else has yet.
Going into the realm of animation, I want to mention the following:
Robotech
Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors
Cartoon Network's 2011 Thundercats
Transformers Beast Machines (yes, I think this one is brilliant, and am unapologetic about that)
Phantom 2040
Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot
Haven
Under the Dome
I literally stumbled across both series, and fell in love with them almost immediately, although they both fell off my radar due to a lack of time and I have yet to finish watching them in their entirety.
I'm also gonna throw in a mention of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, since I'm surprised no one else has yet.
Going into the realm of animation, I want to mention the following:
Robotech
Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors
Cartoon Network's 2011 Thundercats
Transformers Beast Machines (yes, I think this one is brilliant, and am unapologetic about that)
Phantom 2040
Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot
How about "7 Days"?
I'm not sure I'd immediately cite it simply because it managed to last 3 seasons. However, it was one of my favorites and I have to ask: HOW LOUD DO I HAVE TO KEEP SCREAMING AT THE UNIVERSE BEFORE THEY PUT THIS OUT ON DVD!!!!!!!?????? They raised my hopes a couple years ago when VEI announced that they'd picked up the DVD rights to several of its UPN contemporaries like Jake 2.0, Level 9, The Sentinel, & Special Unit 2. They also released the 1993 revival of The Untouchables, which was made by the same production company as 7 Days. But 7 Days hasn't even gotten a mention amongst all this. Granted, the entire series has been bootlegged onto YouTube and I still have a low-quality bootleg DVD that I picked up from Phoenix ComicCon. But I want them to take my money so I can get actual DVD quality eps!
Also, I would point out that Project Backstep prevented terrorist attacks on a weekly basis. The show was canceled in May 2001. Four months later, 9/11 happened! Coincidence?
I've never seen it but I wish they'd put the series on DVD in the U.S. since I often hear it mentioned in the same breath alongside 1970s Doctor Who.
Another British show that I'd like to see get a proper full American DVD release is Hex. The 1st season was kinda boring apart from the wacky ghost lesbian roommate, but the show seemed to be headed in the right direction in the early episodes of Season 2 that I saw. And I'm surprised that they haven't put it out just to cross-promote the hell out of the fact that the bad guy is Michael Fassbender!
I've been surprised at how many people haven't seen it. A coworker of mine was a huge fan of 1960s TV like The Twilight Zone & Alfred Hitchcock but he'd never even heard of The Prisoner.
Wonderfalls - this was an awesome little show. Every time I see a coin on the ground I still think of the barrel bear saying "Find a penny - pick it up"....and I occasionally console myself about this issue or that with a mental picture of the monkey bookend saying "It's perfectly normal".I'm just thankful that they did the first season as a self-contained unit with a good ending. I'd have loved to have seen more seasons, but the show is very watchable on DVD because it ends well.
The actors were all excellent too, and that cast deserved more of a chance than they got. Good to see Lee Pace on Pushing Daisies...but Wonderfalls was a fabulous show that got screwed over.
This show is also great because it contains one of the funniest lines ever uttered on a TV show: William Saddler's character informing his wife that there are plenty of ways to counteract depression besides taking a pill...and then yelling through the locked door at Jaye (his daughter)...."Jaye honey...when was the last time you had an orgasm???"
"That sound you're hearing? It's stunned silence!"
I see that I mentioned it earlier in the thread (9 years ago) but it merits further mention that Wonderfalls is one of the greatest, funniest TV shows ever to suffer the indignity of being canceled by FOX after only 4 episodes. Thankfully, the entire 13 episode series is available on DVD and, despite its early cancellation, ends in such a satisfying way that you could easily just slap an "And they all lived happily ever after" onto the end of the series finale and be perfectly fine.
No TV show cancellation can ever hurt me ever again and it's because I've wept all my tears for Wonderfalls.
I saw the first half of the series. I don't remember much about it but I remember liking it because it reminded me vaguely of Angel. And since Angel is my favorite show ever, any show that bares even a half-assed resemblance to it is worth watching in my book.
No DVDs but it's on YouTube apparently. Never saw it but I should probably try it. My teenage self will appreciate feeding my Ezri Dax crush.
Never got around to watching the show but the theme song is probably one of the best ever. It's all I can do to avoid bursting into song right now. "In 1801, the Revolution had been won...."
I wanted to like it. I don't know that I can ever quite get past my resentment that it replaced 7 Days in UPN's lineup.
I liked the original Prisoner. The remake isn't nearly as iconic but I liked it OK. It dealt with some interesting themes. I suppose part of it is that I went into it knowing that, other than the very basic premise, it would be absolutely nothing like the original. The original is so distinctly 1960s in both its psychedelic style and its Cold War paranoia that there's just no way to recreate that in a "modern" way.
Sounds like Jeremiah, a 2-season Showtime series created by J. Michael Straczynski starring Luke Perry & Malcolm Jamal Warner.
I never saw it but I remember seeing the ads for it. I still have an old copy of Fox Kids Magazine where they interview a very young Ryan Gosling about the show and whether he's dating anyone.
Speaking of fantasy shows on Fox Kids during that era, who else here remembers Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog? It was basically a Power Rangers ripoff with medieval knights and no old Japanese footage to help defray the costs of the action scenes. I really only watched it because I had a huge crush on Princess Deirdre.
Wait, does that mean Special Unit 2 is coming out on DVD?!
I also really liked Beast Machines. It had some weird continuity with Beast Wars, but overall, I liked the story it told, especially later season 1 into season 2. I liked Silverbolt in season 2 and the nods to previous continuity, such as the Hate Virus from "Return of Optimus Prime." I, for one, liked the techno-organic Cybertron at the end, though I did have to laugh at how some said the shadowy figures running in the background in the final scene were actually an angry mob! Botanica was also a great addition, as well as the newer Vehicons Obisdian and Strika. At one point, I had all of the toys, but that was my second childhood in my early 20's. Ah, memories!
THE 4400 actually ran for four seasons, but, yeah, that was a good show. And did I mention that there were novels, too.
But, as was revealed at the end of season one, the "aliens" were not actually aliens; they were time-traveling humans from the future.
THE 4400 actually ran for four seasons, but, yeah, that was a good show. And did I mention that there were novels, too.
But, as was revealed at the end of season one, the "aliens" were not actually aliens; they were time-traveling humans from the future.
From memory The 4400 was one of those shows that was a victim of one one of the writers strikes. Just a shame it never got a TV Movie to wrap it up.
Novels? - Do we know who wrote them?THE 4400 actually ran for four seasons, but, yeah, that was a good show. And did I mention that there were novels, too.
But, as was revealed at the end of season one, the "aliens" were not actually aliens; they were time-traveling humans from the future.
Seriously, I didn't get into the series when it first aired though the family watched it. I got hooked when they released the series on dvd and own all of the novels.
Seven Days I enjoyed a lot but they didn't do that good a job airing here and I would like dvds of it.
I also enjoyed the 96 version of The Cape (Less superhero and more Nasa) but that had bad airing times here and little to no chance of official dvds
That was my assumption, too. That the writer's strike pretty much killed any chance of a final season.
For what it's worth, Dave Mack and I did our best to wrap things up in the novels.
It came out October 6 of this year. http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/releases/Special-Unit-2-Complete-Series/17649
The Sentinel came out in September 2015. We're still waiting on Jake 2.0 & Level 9 though.
Since it ran for 4 seasons, I don't know that Torchwood technically qualifies as "Brilliant but canceled." However, I do lament the way that they just sort of kamikaze piloted that show into the ground during the 4th season. Season 1 was good but tried too hard to be "adult" and ended up coming across as quite juvenile as a result. The show really found its footing in Season 2 and I would have appreciated more seasons in that vein. The "Children of Earth" mini-series is brilliantly developed but deeply frustrating and emotionally distressing. It's 5 supremely powerful hours of television but I'm not sure I'd ever be able to stand watching it ever again. The final "Miracle Day" miniseries was just crap. There was a decent idea at its core but the villains' plot doesn't make any sense. I also didn't like most of the new characters and the whole thing just runs out of steam during the 2nd half. They tried to recapture the magic of "Children of Earth" but bloated it out to a 10-part miniseries.
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