Matt's Rantbox: FOX Canceling Shows

Or: Yes, I Realize Terminator Got Canceled a Couple Months Ago, I've Been Busy...

For those of you who don’t know, The Terminator franchise had a TV series called The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Emphasis on “had”. Despite positive fan feedback, the show did not get very good ratings, and after only two seasons, FOX pulled the show. To make it worse, the second season's finale had an extremely open ended resolution and actually started an entirely new story arc.

While I’ll be the first to admit that the show itself wasn’t amazing, it was still decent, and it's total bullshit for FOX to leave viewers with a cliffhanger ending like they did (apparently the fans agree). This might be one of FOX’s biggest blunders (in my opinion), but it certainly isn’t their first. Let’s take a look at their track record, shall we?

Firefly was another sci-fi/ action series and was created by Joss Whedon. The show only ran one season (only 11 of 14 episodes of which were aired) before FOX pulled the plug on that one. Arrested Development, easily one of the funniest shows ever, got canceled after three seasons (which was really more like two and a half).

Futurama, while miraculously managing to last five seasons, was another show that got canceled well before it should have. Last but not least, while it might be easy to forget, Family Guy got pulled from FOX, back when it was actually good too.

Something interesting that I’ve noticed about all of these shows, though, is how determined the fans have been to get some closure on unfinished story lines, or at least some kind of continuation of the series. Like I mentioned before, The Sarah Connor Chronicles has a strong fan-base trying to get the show back on the air right now.

Family Guy is probably the best example of this; after strong DVD sales and good viewership when the episodes aired on Adult Swim, the show was brought back to FOX (which Seth MacFarlane practically dominates at this point). Futurama has been brought back as well, only not quite as triumphantly, with a series of four straight-to-DVD movies (which are currently being shown in episode format on Comedy Central, I believe).

Firefly fans eventually got what they wanted when Serenity was released in theaters, a direct follow-up to the series. And it looks like Arrested Development fans are going to get the same treatment, as a film is currently in the works.

So what am I getting at with all this self-indulgent trivia? I guess what I’m really trying to say is: people, make sure to watch these shows BEFORE they're off the air. Oh, and to FOX: stop fucking up. Realize when you have a good show on your hands, BEFORE you cancel it. It’ll save the fans a lot of work, and I’m sure you’ll get less hate mail from us, er, I mean them. (Oh, and get rid of fucking American Idol already!)