Having a favorite TV show canceled is one of life’s unhappiest moments. Sometimes, there are logical reasons, like writers’ strikes or low ratings. Other times, shows seem to be canceled for no obvious reason. If you’ve ever fallen in love with a show just to have it ground to a halt, this list will speak to you.
#1: The Society (Peak TV!)
This supernatural teen drama debuted on Netflix in 2019 and featured a group of teenagers who have to learn how to govern themselves after their town is suddenly cut off from the rest of the world and all the adults vanish.
The first and only season of the show mainly followed Allie, the younger sister of the intelligent and accomplished Cassandra, as she navigated love and leadership in the new society. There was backstabbing, drama, romance, power struggles, and post-apocalyptic themes.
The TV show ended due to the COVID-19 pandemic and on multiple, ginormous cliffhangers like an unsolved murder, Allie’s removal from power, a birth, and a dwindling food supply. The society ended on a high, although it shouldn’t have ended at all.
#2: V
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The 2009 ratings weren’t high enough for ABC—a little over 5 million views each for the first and second seasons—so viewers had to accept that the show would never get a conclusion.
In V, Earth was invaded by friendly aliens who called themselves visitors, or V for short. They were led by their queen, Anna, played by Morena Baccarin. At first glance, the visitors were peaceful. They healed human diseases and invited humans to stay aboard their ships, but Detective Erica Evans knew the truth.
She and an anti-V group called The Fifth Column secretly undermined Anna and her plans for humanity, taking down V sleeper agents as they went. It ended on the best/worst possible cliffhanger: a major character death.
#3: Red Band Society
The Red Band Society premiered on Fox in 2014 and gave viewers teen drama in a pediatric hospital ward. The society was made up of Leo, Emma, Jordi, Kara, Dash, and Charlie, a boy in a coma who served as the narrator. They dealt with cancer, eating disorders, heart conditions, and cystic fibrosis while falling into love triangles and learning life lessons, usually from the head pediatric nurse Dena Jackson, played by Octavia Spencer.
The TV show was canceled in 2015 due to low ratings. The 3.3 million regular viewers weren’t enough for the network, and attempts to move it to another network failed. Despite the low ratings, the show was fun and heartfelt, and many were disappointed when it went off the air.
#4 The Nine Lives of Chloe King
The popular TV show, based on the book of the same name by Liz Braswell, ran on ABC Family from June to August 2011. Our main character is Chloe King, a 16-year-old girl who discovers that she is a member of an ancient race of people with cat-like powers called the Mai.
Throughout the singular season, she is hunted by an organization that wants to kill her because it is her destiny to unite humans and the Mai. She has to protect her nine lives, which dwindle every time she has a confrontation with The Rogue, an assassin out to get her. Like every good teen show, Chloe also navigated love.
It was a fan favorite and highly rated, so its cancellation and cliffhangers are a mystery. There was talk of a movie to end the series and answer all the questions, like who Chloe would end up with, but it never got off the ground.
#5 Not Dead Yet
Not Dead Yet on ABC starred Gina Rodriguez as an obituary writer named Nell Serrano. After living in London with a fiancé who dumps her, Nell moves back home to California and begins working at her old newspaper. She has somehow been gifted the ability to talk to the deceased people she’s writing about, and she learns life lessons from them in the process.
The ratings were low for an ABC TV show, apparently the lowest out of the three sitcoms on the network in the 2024 season. Low ratings aside, it was a lighthearted and funny show. It had relatable characters, and more often than not, every episode had a happy ending.
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