Cancelled TV Shows: Series That Had Renewals Reversed
TV show cancellations are devastating enough on their own. But when a series has already been renewed, then gets unceremoniously axed? That’s eat-ice-cream-straight-outta-the-gallon levels of heartbreak.
Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the occasional TV show did have its renewal for a subsequent season reversed, as happened with series like HBO’s Vinyl or ABC’s Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. But as COVID upended the TV industry in 2020 and beyond — affecting production schedules and budgets, among other factors — it’s now, frustratingly, not uncommon for shows that were already picked up for additional seasons to later be cancelled. (The ever-shifting landscape of new streaming services and corporate mergers has had an impact, too.)
Paramount+’s anthology series Why Women Kill is the latest one to have its fate changed: The dramedy was cancelled on July 1, seven months after its Season 3 renewal had been announced. In recent years, though, “un-renewals” have also yanked Netflix’s GLOW (sniff!), Comedy Central’s Drunk History and ABC’s Stumptown from our TV schedules, to name just a few.
Which unexpected cancellation bums you out the most? Scroll through our list below to see all of the reversed renewals, then drop a comment with the shows you still wish had returned.