TV Networks Begin Their Spring Cleaning: Frequency, Timeless Among Series Already Cancelled

It’s May Sweeps season, and no that isn’t a quidditch thing.  Sweeps are when networks make pushes for viewership, and also when the majority of series cancelations happen.  It’s a hard time to be a fan of tv show, waiting on pins and needles to see if the axe comes down or not.

NBC today confirmed a long feared announcement, Timeless is NOT coming back for a second season.  The time travel series that would make any Starfleet officer yell about the Prime Directive received pretty ok reviews on the average, but Nielson ratings ultimately did it in. It lasted 1 season.

Other NBC series we already knew weren’t coming back:

Aquarius– The David Duchovny lead series about the Zodiac killer. Lasted: 2 seasons

Emerald City– Yet another attempt to create a tv series about the Land of Oz and the Wizard (Vincent D’ONofrio) therein. Lasted: 1 season

Powerless– DC’s attempt at half hour sitcom where a research and development company attempts to prevent superhero battle damage to cities (and the cleanups).  Lasted: 1 season

CBS cancellations:

American Gothic- Rich Boston family finds out their recently deceased patriarch may have been a serial killer.  Awkward. Lasted: 1 season

BrainDead– Political satire series about a film-maker who takes a job working for her U.S. Senator brother when the funding for her latest film falls through. Lasted: 1 season

Doubt– Katherine Heigl‘s series about a successful defense lawyer who gets romantically involved with one of her clients who may or may not be guilty of bad things.  This one didn’t last more than two episodes before getting canned. Lasted: 2 episodes

The CW:

Frequency: Actually not a terrible series, interesting premise thats based on the 2000 film of the same name where using a radio allows (in the show’s case) a recently deceased man’s daughter to speak to his past self following a freak storm. Lasted: 1 season

No Tomorrow– romantic comedy where a ‘free spirited boyfriend’ (oh boy, just had to put that in the series description, huh CW?) convinces girlfriend to make a bucket list before the world ends and helps her do everything on it.   Lasted: 1 season

ABC:

Time After Time: You may notice a theme here, almost all the new series about time travel or some type of time dilation just weren’t finding the right audience.  This show followed HG Wells on his quest to stop Jack the Ripper.  Lasted: 1 season

Last Man Standing: Tim Allen‘s series about a married father of three tries to maintain his manliness in a world increasingly dominated by women. Lasted: 6 seasons

FOX:

Pitch: Series about the first woman to play in the current major leagues of baseball did really well it’s first few episodes, but waning audiences and not so great critical reception brought it to it’s early end. Lasted: 1 season

Rosewood: Procedural drama about a criminal pathologist who solves crimes better than anyone else he works with.  Lasted: 2 seasons

Sleepy Hollow: The little dark show that could really, following the classic Americana tale about Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman, the series brought Crane into the modern day (oh look, more time travel!) and paired him with a local police officer. Lasted: 4 seasons

You The Jury: Fox trying to bring together live voting and real crime, a series built on the idea that the audience could vote on the outcome of  the most “explosive, real-life, ripped-from-the-headline civil cases”.  Gee, how did THAT ever fail.  Lasted: 2 episodes

While these really don’t represent the best of TV, hopefully the cast and crew(s) of these series will find new projects.