Do you ever start a show knowing it was cancelled?
I recently watched HBO’s The Time Travelers Wife full well knowing there was only one season. I think I mostly regret it. I loved the show, and knowing there won’t be any more to watch has bummed me out for the past week. I can’t remember feeling this way about any other show - it sucks.
If it’s serialized: Maybe. If it didn’t end on a cliffhanger that will never get resolved, I might check something out knowing it’s cancelled. Even if the ending might suck, it’s at least an ending. Crappy endings aren’t half as bad as not having one at all. Especially if you liked it up to the point it just stops.
If you liked The Time Traveler's Wife then keep an eye out for Journeyman. It also only had one season, was also very Time-travely. Still worth watching.
Oddly enough, Travelers was cancelled by ShowCase after 2 seasons. Netflix picked up the show and gave them another season, so they had a chance to wrap up the story.
Travelers is a gem. People should watch it.
The way I approach it is that you have to mentally prepare and then just “spin your own head cannon” of how it would have wrapped up. That can be better than if a show went on for too long past the main storyline, or the main storyline wrapping up disappointingly. You just have to learn to accept that some awesome stories won’t be finished.
So overall for me it’s not that important for decision to watch or not.
Recently watched Night Sky knowing it hadn’t been renewed… liked it enough but wish they’d gotten more ground covered in the first and only season. Not bad tho, Simmons and Spacek are fantastic.
This was exactly what I thought of with this question
The first episode or two, jk Simmons and Sissy Spacek were the only reason I kept watching (they’re great). But by the end, I was completely invested in the story, which they will never finish.
Yes, as long as reviews say that it was worth it anyway or that it wrapped up the season even though there could be more.
The main reason I don’t worry too much about cancelations is the number of series that dropped in quality in later seasons were worse to slog through hoping they would recover than to have had someone put it out of its misery. Also shows that and up with terrible explanations for what was originally mysterious and intriguing. Like I love a good reveal, but do many writers fumble it or if the show goes on long enough, the later series writers didn’t understand the original intent and botch it completely.
Beat if the wrap up the current storylines and leave a cliffhanger for something new each season if they don’t have a multiple season commitment.
I liked the Generation 5 Movie- they made legitimately good characters.
But I don't know why I made myself watch the G5 CGI TV show. I think I've been pretty blue with some health stuff and disability making me feel hopeless, so I needed something to beat me over the head with sunshine and rainbows.
But boy, was it painful to watch. Its clear that everyone actually cares, from writers to animators to the music cast, but they're so damn rushed, the animations felt like keyframes with autogenerated in-betweens. (One character literally has NO EARS because they weren't afforded time to correct reference sheets!!!)
But the worst part is that the entire pitch of Generation 5 was basically "Something went wrong in the time after Twilight Sparkle and her friends. (the previous series' protagonists) And we have to fix it."
...And then they never explained what went wrong. But because the writers haven't inspired confidence outside of individual character writing, its probably an embarrassingly bad reason, so maybe it was actually good it got cancelled?
The narratives have the bones of good plots, but needed a real writer's room and, like, five more drafts.
I'd like to write picture books one day, so I like critiquing this kind of thing, and it hurts me how basically every script could have been as good as a good episode of an older My Little Pony show with some time.
So then, presumably knowing they're getting cancelled, they rush to defeat the main antagonist in a pretty unsatisfying way... (And... I think she fuckin' died??? In this more juvenile followup to Friendship is Magic???)
And then, because they have toy quotas to meet, they spend the runtime of an entire special- the very last thing they produced for the CG series -off in a winter wonderland, instead of using that to better resolve the final conflict.
It was really cute, honestly. Got my quota of "Sunshine and Rainbows" met, and had some of the best everything in the series. But I really should have just watched this and some classic 80s MLP and been done.
I mean, just look at that, its just so damn pleasant and adorable and happy, and colorful, but in a way that doesn't make your eyes bleed. The animation is legitimately good, and the song is a pleasant tune that isn't going to ruin your day if it gets in your head.
...Except even this adorable, very classically MLP snowy romp still (completely pointlessly) evokes the time in G4 where that one character had a legitimate cult and then caused the apocalypse like a dozen times because it just can't shake the shadow of its predecessor.
Why did I do this to myself?
I should have stopped watching when the animation of the first season was literally making my toes curl.
It depends. If it ends on a cliffhanger I will probably skip it. The real trick is trying to find out if a show ends on a cliffhanger or if it wraps up, without spoilering yourself.
Yeah I mean the Time Travellers Wife didn’t really end in much of a cliffhanger. I just know the book had so much more story and Sambit I want to see the rest of it!
But for sure a cancelled show with a cliffhanger ending would be a hard no for me as well.
I pretty much exclusively watch shows that have been cancelled or finished on their own terms. I don’t like tracking down when different shows are coming back or watching a show rapidly go down hill in it’s last couple seasons.
I watched Firefly knowing that it was cancelled. And I didn’t know about Serenity. But then I got to discover that and get something close enough to closure.
That would’ve been the logical direction they should’ve pursued story wise. How cool the other world would’ve been to explore!. Unfortunately, they ended up going in a completely different and bonkers direction, and by season three it was very clear. They had absolutely no idea where they were going with it. 
Watched The Mick this past year knowing that it had been cancelled on a cliffhanger. Hilarious show with Kaitlin Olsen, would recommend to anyone, but damn that is a frustrating place to end.
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