List of television series canceled after one episode
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Sometimes a television series is successful, and goes on to become well-known. Other shows are canceled shortly after their first airing. Rarely, a show is canceled after (or during) their first airing, and never given a second airing; these rarities are the subject of this list.
Note that this list excludes backdoor pilots (pilots which are shot in such a way that they can be aired either as a TV movie or as a regular episode of another series). This list is not exclusive to American series and contains a few examples of shows that, while successful in one country, were cancelled quickly elsewhere.
List of television series canceled after one episode
- Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos
- 1992 comedy series spun off from Australia's Funniest Home Video Show, hosted by Doug Mulray. This show was actually cancelled during its first episode when Nine Network owner Kerry Packer reportedly called the station and personally ordered them to "get that shit off the air." After the plug was pulled, they went to a commercial break, and two re-runs of Cheers or Married With Children (depending on the source) was aired instead. It is understood that Packer was alerted to the program by several of his personal friends at a dinner.
- Co-Ed Fever
- 1979 sitcom that attempted to imitate the then successful National Lampoon's Animal House. The pilot was aired as a "special preview" of the then coming season on February 4, and the series was canceled in the interim between this airing and the actual date when the series was due to be aired.
- Dot Comedy
- 2000 American version of a British comedy show on ABC featuring humorous material found on the Web.
- Emily's Reasons Why Not
- 2006 comedy show on ABC starring Heather Graham as a single, career woman unlucky in love who employs a list-making system designed to serve as an internal warning on when it's time to cut bait and move on.
- The Great Defender
- 1995 legal drama on Fox starring Michael Rispoli as a My Cousin Vinny type lawyer. The show aired opposite 60 Minutes and lasted literally 60 minutes. Fox burned off the remaining episodes in the summer.
- Heil Honey I'm Home!
- 1990 comedy show on British Satellite Broadcasting in which Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun live next door to a Jewish couple. Noted for being the first and, until 2006, only UK show cancelled after one episode.
- It's Now Or Never
- 2006 light entertainment show hosted by Philip Schofield on ITV in which one member of a couple proposed to the other in the style of a musical [1].
- Lawless
- 1997 Fox action series starring former football star Brian Bosworth as a private investigator.
- The Master
- 2006 Australian quiz show hosted by Mark Beretta on the Seven Network. Axed after the premiere received low ratings. [2]
- Public Morals
- 1996 Steven Bochco-produced sitcom about a vice squad unit of the New York Police Department that aired on CBS. The show's pilot had been scheduled to air, but several affiliates refused to show it. CBS aired another episode that turned out to be the only one that was aired out of the thirteen episodes that were produced.
- South of Sunset
- 1993 private detective show on CBS starring Glenn Frey of rock band The Eagles. This was the first U.S.-produced series to be cancelled after one episode since 1969 and was heavily promoted during the World Series. The remaining five episodes eventually aired on the VH1 cable network a year later. MTV also aired episodes while celebrating the Eagles' reunion tour.
- Trev n Trav
- 2001 sitcom on BBC2 in which a Cockney wideboy (shady operator) and his Australian housemate share all sorts of scrapes and japes.
- Turn-On
- 1969 poorly-received derivative of Laugh-In. Although not the first series to be immediately cancelled, Turn-On is generally considered the best-known example. It's considered one of the most notorious flops in television history. Some local markets cancelled the show midway through the broadcast, but the story that it was yanked midway through its first episode nationwide is untrue. After the first show, the sponsor (Bristol-Myers) cancelled. The show was equally composed of weirdness the average audience merely puzzled over (or was annoyed by) and straightforward bad, bad taste. Tim Conway is forever (and unfairly) connected with the show. He is "remembered" as being the star, which he wasn't. The "star" was a disembodied computer voice. Conway was merely the first week's guest star.
- The Ron White Show
- 2005 comedy show on the WB which was billed as a night of Blue Collar humor. It featured a lengthy opening with Ron briefly taking in the different pleasures of Las Vegas, viewers were presented a rapid string of short sketches. There were celebrity cameos (including Dr. Phil) and a few animated renditions of Ron's jokes, which were heavily censored.
- Who's Your Daddy?
- 2005 reality series on Fox TV that involved an adopted woman trying to pick her biological father out of a group of imposters. The show attracted protest from adoptive families and adoption-rights groups before airing. This combined with the fact that the first episode had poor ratings caused the five additional episodes to be permanently shelved.[3]
- The Will
- 2005 reality TV show on CBS in which family members and friends competed to be named the beneficiary of a will. Five episodes were produced and were later aired in Australia and New Zealand.
- You're in the Picture
- 1961 game show starring Jackie Gleason; notable in part for Gleason going on the air the next week and saying of the show: "Honesty is the best policy. We had a show last week that laid the biggest bomb! I've seen bombs in my day, but this one made the H-bomb look like a two-finger salute." Technically the series wasn't cancelled, but rather Gleason renamed it The Jackie Gleason Show and it became a talk show for the remainder of its limited run. Since the series substantially changed format, as well as its title, after one episode, it is usually referenced as having lasted a single episode, with the later talk show being considered a separate series.
Series cancelled before airing a single episode
Even more rare than series cancelled after a single showing are series cancelled before a single episode is broadcast. While many pilot episodes for series are made each television season and only a select few get picked up, there have been occasions in which a network has announced the debut of a new series only to cancel the series before broadcast.
One such example is Manchester Prep, a series based upon the film Cruel Intentions that was commissioned by the Fox Broadcasting Company and advertised as a new series, but, perhaps due to its controversial subject matter involving teen sexuality, was cancelled before broadcast. The pilot episode of Manchester Prep was later partially refilmed to add nudity and adult subject matter, and released as the R-rated direct-to-video film, Cruel Intentions 2. Likewise, in 1998, Fox heavily advertised a series called Rewind that would have followed two advertising executives (Scott Baio and Mystro Clark) in the current day and in flashbacks to their experiences in the 1970s but eventually cancelled the series before any showings.
Australian series Hotel Story, made by Crawford Productions, was cancelled by Channel Ten before a single episode had been aired and only seven episodes shot. After Channel Ten cancelled the series, Crawford found that the contract had never been signed, so they had no legal redress. The first four episodes later went to air as a "miniseries" screened over two nights.
The BBC commissioned a cartoon series called Popetown in 2002 which consisted of comical misrepresentations of the Roman Catholic church. After a sustained campaign from senior Catholic theologians, the series was never broadcast on the grounds that it was not of sufficient quality. However, Popetown made its debut on New Zealand music television network C4, and was released on DVD in September 2005.
Another animated series that was cancelled at the last minute was an animated version of Garbage Pail Kids, based on Topps' bubble gum parody of the "Cabbage Patch Kids". Originally scheduled to debut in the fall of 1987 on CBS's Saturday morning schedule, it was cancelled before its debut, after complaints from parental groups. In its place on the schedule was an extra half hour of Muppet Babies. The Garbage Pail Kids series remain unseen in the US until 2006, when the series was released on DVD.
In 1976, comedian David Brenner was slated to star in Snip, a sitcom where he would portray a hairdresser dealing with his ex-wife (portrayed by Lesley Ann Warren) moving back in with him. Created by James Komack, who had earlier created hits like Chico and the Man and Welcome Back Kotter, Snip seemed to have great potential, and was heavily promoted by NBC. However, the network decided to pull the show at the last minute after seven episodes were filmed (it was so abrupt even TV Guide was caught off guard, and still listed the show in its schedule guide). Brenner thinks this was due to fears of controversy, as one of the supporting characters was openly gay. Brenner quipped that, apparently, "In 1976, there were no gay people in America."
One series that never made it to the air due to political pressure was Mr. Dugan, a three-week trial series set to be aired on CBS from March 11 through March 25, 1979. Starring Cleavon Little as a fledging black congressman, Mr. Dugan was yanked from CBS' schedule after several real black congressmen took umbrage after a special screening.
The 2005 ABC reality show Welcome to the Neighborhood was cancelled before it aired because of its subject matter that "risked fostering prejudice." A conservative white neighborhood has to choose their new neighbors from a group of families that are black, Hispanic and Asian; two gay white men who've adopted a black child; a couple covered in tattoos and piercings; a couple who met at the woman’s initiation as a witch; and a poor white family.
Judge Reinhold has been on two shows which have been cancelled before an episode was aired. In 1995, he and Mel Harris starred in Raising Caines, a family sitcom which was supposed to have aired on NBC. In 1997, he starred in another sitcom, Secret Service Guy, which Fox decided to not air. However, both shows aired overseas.
For the 2005-2006 season, NBC's Thick and Thin and The WB's Misconceptions were announced as midseason replacements. In each case, six episodes were produced, but none were ever aired.
There have also been occasions in which a studio or network has commissioned production of a pilot in anticipation of airing a series, only to decide to shift gears and produce a feature film instead. One of the earliest examples of this is Star Trek: Phase II, a planned revival of Star Trek that was to air on a proposed Paramount Pictures television network in the fall of 1977. When plans for the network fell through, the first episode of Phase II was given an expanded budget and became Star Trek: The Motion Picture.