For me it is a tossup between Firefly and Brimstone

Firefly!!!

I'd have to give my vote to Playmakers (ESPN's first attempt at a series following a fictional pro football team behind the scenes). The show was really interesting and I really got into the characters, plus I'm a sucker for sports based movies, and this was close enough for me. It's a shame that the NFL had to step in and start crying about how it reflected poorly on them, despite the fact that Playmakers hardly depicted some of the awful things that NFL players have actually done in real life. I was really hoping that someone would pick it up elsewhere and continue the series as it was an excellent one that had lots of promise.


Also, John Mayer's TV show on VH1 was pretty damn hilarious, but I didn't see it go beyond its first episode, which is a shame because it was really really funny.

The Agency (I think it was on CBS)
Greg the Bunny (Fox)

I wish the live-action version of "The Tick" had lasted longer than it did, but I was almost sure it was gone as soon as I saw it too. Just too weird for people not familiar with The Tick. At least it's out on DVD..

"Herman's Head" was great! Every time I see Hank Azaria now, that show pops in my head immediately (same thing with the fat(ter) guy that was in Herman's head).

Unfortunately Firefly didn't even last for a whole season. Thank God for the movie coming out though.

Let me add "Action", with Jay Mohr - didn't even last a full season before Fox killed it, but I thought it was damn funny in a very black humor sort of way.

Also, I'll kick in vote's for "Undeclared" and "The Tick".

Wanderlust

A very funny show on comedy central. Everyone who has watched it that I have talked to says that it was one of the funniest TV shows they have ever seen.

Only 6 episodes were made.

Playmakers... it was a good show. Sissle and Ollie. 3 South, Dilbert, THe show about abe lincon and other various characters as high schoolers. They made like 4 episodes

I really liked Jon Doe... too bad it ended before you could of found out who he really was... :(

My vote goes to Brimstone. I was shocked when it got cancelled. They had a great idea, and room for over 100 shows. It's really too bad it didn't make it.

I just remembered a show called American Gothic that was around for a short while. It was incredibly odd, with Gary Cole as a human version of Satan in a small backwater town that managed to fuck up everybody's lives in some way. It was superb, but I don't know how many episodes they got in before it was nixed.

That show drove me nuts! The characters voices were just so different from what I had always imagined in my own head.

As soon as I read the title of this thread, I immediately thought Freaks and Geeks.

Also "Bob," which was cancelled at the beginning of its second season.

Just watched the "series" finale of the new Battlestar Galactica.
That damn well better not end up on this list!
Firefly, Battlestar, this has been my year of watching stuff that should go on longer that didn't (or hasn't)
Hell, any old star trek crapola can coast on for 7 terrible years just on name recognition, why can't good stuff make it?

That would be Clone High. I actually thought that show was pretty funny. But, it started all kinds of protesting and even a mass hunger strike because of the portrayal of all those historic figures in such a negative way. Personally I thought it was pretty damn funny, but I can see how people would take offense to showing Gandhi as a prankster teenager with ADHD and a knack for toilet jokes. Actually, I'm almost positive it was way worse than that, but it was a long time ago since I last saw it.

although it's really too early to tell, i don't think that comedy central is going to bring back Drawn Together. i loved that show. it was so freaking hilarious!

Hidden Hills on NBC with the incredibly hot Paula Marshall

Well, I think it lasted about a season and a half... but The State on MTV in the mid-90s was quite literally the best television show ever, hands down (a lot of the cast are now on Reno 911, and writing for other TV shows).

Oh man. That show was hilarious. I was just thinking of it last night because I came across a skit I had downloaded (the one about the international signal for "I am choking"). I definitely agree that this show should have went on for FAR longer than it did, but it was on the network with the worst case of A.D.D. I have ever seen in my life.

However, I think a good portion of The State's cast did a show called Viva Variety a little while after. That show didn't last for more than a few episodes though, from what I remember.

The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. All I really remember is it had a strange sort of western/future mix of elements. Two thumbs up.

I liked the show called "Titus" i forgot what station it was on but it was great, lasted about 1 season if i remember

I thought that show was called Off Centre?

They did Viva Variety which was also cut short, a movie titled "Wet Hot American Summer" which was pretty funny... and if you look into the guys on IMDB, nearly every other comedy on TV right now has at least one of them listed in the writing credits.

When I saw the thread title, the first thing that came to mind was Freaks and Geeks.

I don't think anyone's mentioned this one yet, but what about "Harsh Realm"?

I never saw it, but it was created by the X-Files' Chris Carter and was on FOX but was cancelled after only 3 episodes. I saw where the DVD is for sale on Amazon and includes the other 6 episodes that never aired. It starred D.B. Sweeney, Lance Henriksen, Samantha Mathis, Terry O'Quinn (who plays Locke on "Lost"), and Scott Bairstow.

Anyone know if it's any good? I may have to rent it on Netflix.

Firefly definately. It was the first show I'd seen on Sci-Fi that made me want to keep watching.

That's right. I totally forgot about Wet Hot American Summer. That was a horribly underrated show, and I'm glad some people out there still remember it.


Does anyone happen to remember that one skit (or maybe special) they did where they performed a play totally straight and serious, save for the fact that EVERYONE had ridiculously stuff tights. And each person who came out to the stage had a progressively more ludicrous "bulge". I actually stole the concept and used it for a little thing my friends and I put on back in high school. Now I'm making it my mission to DL all the old episodes of that show. However, I think it lasted more than a season, so it doesn't technically fit in this thread, but it was definitely cut off way too early.

I loved this show...the enemy was a silicon based life form that couldn't breathe our air..

We had Humans and Clones called "tanks" (because they were born full size out of this tank ala matrix) as soldiers defending the human race.

Police Squad with Leslie Nielson

I liked Firefly and Sports Night. Both were great shows a that unfortunately only lasted one season.

Firefly was cancled because it was competing for time slots, and didn't get enough hype.. I didn't even know it existed untill it was cancled.. I now enjoy the box set.. If Firefly were to come back on Sci-Fi Fridays with SG1 and BSG it would work..

Good news for those Firefly fans who are out there. Look for Serenity the Motion Picture in Theaters this coming September.

Nowhere Man was pretty great, if a little stretched out. About 20 hour-long episodes, I think... they could've told the story just fine in six or seven.

I thought this show was damn funny as well. Comedy Central shows the episodes once in a while. Jay Mohr's character - Peter Dragon - was a complete ass, which made the show good.

Ill add another vote for Greg the Bunny. Im sorry but this show was absolutely hilarious, in a Muppets/South Park/Simpsons kind of way. This was the best work Seth Green has ever done.

Wonderfalls
 

Wonderfalls was a very cool show. Probably my favorite one season show.

Millennium doesn't count, it was on for three seasons...but it only felt like one season.

The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Undergrads

what a fantastic show

I just wanted to add another vote for Firefly, having just seen all the episodes from the DVD.

I'm pretty sure, given sufficient capital, I could start a cable network that plays only the episodes of good shows that Fox cancelled early. Just off the top of my head, we'd have The Tick, Andy Richter Controls The Universe (the funniest show since the Simpsons was good), Firefly, The Lone Rangers, Titus, and almost would have had Arrested Development. This doesn't even include shows given more than one season but still cancelled early, like The Critic, Futurama and Family Guy.

I don't get it. Fox consistently takes risks by producing some of the most inventive, original, risky programming year after year and then winds up pulling the plug on 90% of those shows before they find an audience. I don't know, it is almost as if Fox learned that you need to take chances after The Simpsons and The X-Files, but then some sort of evil corporate mandate for homogeneity kicks in and they murder their own.

If Fox just promoted these shows properly (no more Futuramas losing entire seasons because of overtime NFL games) and gave them a chance to find an audience, Fox would probably win damn near every night in the Nielson Ratings.

Add another vote for the Undergrads, originally on MTV. I have the DVD of the only season, and every single time I show it to a friend who has never seen it before, they say "Oh man that has happened to me before!" or "I know someone who went through that!"

Chalk another one up for Clerks: The Animated Series. I actually didn't see it on TV at all, but my friend showed me the DVD and instantly fell in love. Funny as hell, albeit not really giving respect to the movie.

1- FIREFLY! FIREFLY! FIREFLY! Bring on the movie, then bring back the series!

2- Clerks: TAS

3- Greg the Bunny ("I'd like to see a magician try and pull me outta her!")

4- Arrested Development

Thought of this one earlier today:

Voyagers!
Anyone remember seeing this? According to IMDB, it ran from October '82 to July '83. I was about 8 years old and loved this show. Guess it got cancelled and the star, Jon-Erik Hexum, went on to work on another show, Cover Up, for a little less than a year before accidentally killing himself on set in October '84 by jokingly placing a blank-loaded .44 Magnum prop gun to his temple and pulling the trigger (the wadding from the blank cartridge shattered his skull). The boy in the show was Punky Brewster's older half-brother.

I'd love to see this show again.

Another vote for Brimstone. From what I remember, the show cost too much to continue with the average ratings it got. Can you imagine this show on HBO? Holy shit.

I'm also going to vote for Karen Cisco because Carla Gugino is so damn fine and Robert Forster and Bill Duke are always cool.