While the cancellation of a television program after only one season or before completing one season is a common occurrence in the business of network television programming, the following is a list of programs of a rare yet similar occurrence in which a television series was removed from a broadcast schedule and production cancelled after a single episode or single day of broadcasting owing to combination of extremely negative reviews, very poor ratings, or radical and/or controversial content. Note that this list excludes backdoor pilots (pilots which are shot in such a way that they can be aired either as a TV movie or as a regular episode of another series), or pilots that were aired but not picked up by a network. This is an international list and should not be exclusive to American series and may contain a few examples of shows that, while successful in one country, were cancelled quickly elsewhere.
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List of television series cancelled after one episode
- Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos
- 1992 comedy series spun off from Australia's Funniest Home Video Show, hosted by Doug Mulray. This show was actually cancelled during its first episode when then-Nine Network owner Kerry Packer reportedly called the station and personally ordered them to "get that shit off the air." After a commercial break, the network cut to a rerun of Cheers citing technical difficulties.[1]
- Co-Ed Fever
- 1979 sitcom that aired on CBS that attempted to imitate the then successful National Lampoon's Animal House. The pilot was aired as a "special preview" of the upcoming season on February 4, but the series was cancelled shortly thereafter. Five completed episodes remain unaired.[2]
- Comedians Unleashed
- 2002 Animal Planet's attempt to mimic Comedy Central's stand up comedy shows but with animal-themed jokes. The episode was rerun a few times before being removed from the programming lineup.[3] This not to be confused with the 2006 syndicated series Comics Unleashed hosted by Byron Allen.
- The Debbie King Show
- 2007 quiz show on ITV Play with Debbie King, finished at 12:30am, a few hours before the station's suspension, and was never restored during the station's limited service or since the station shut down eight days later.
- Dot Comedy
- A 2000 American series that appeared on ABC featuring humorous material from the internet.
- Emily's Reasons Why Not
- 2006 comedy show on ABC starring Heather Graham as a single career woman, unlucky in love, who employs a list-making system to help her determine when it's time to give up and move on. The series was cancelled the day after broadcast by ABC programming chief Steve McPherson when he decided that it was "not going to get better and we needed a quick change."[4]
- Genesis
- 2000 game show on PAX TV. Jim MacKrell was the host of this hour-long show. Two teams of four, each representing a different church, competed to answer Biblical trivia questions to win money for their church and a trip to Israel.
- Heil Honey I'm Home!
- A 1990 British comedy that spoofed American sitcoms of the 1950s and ‘60s by featuring caricatures of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun who live in matrimonial bliss until they become neighbors to a Jewish couple.
- Lawless
- 1997 Fox action series starring former American football star Brian Bosworth as a private investigator.[5]
- The Master
- 2006 Australian quiz show hosted by Mark Beretta on the Seven Network. Axed after the premiere received low ratings. Remaining episodes which had already been filmed were aired during non-ratings later in the year.[6]
- Public Morals
- 1996 Steven Bochco-produced sitcom about a vice squad unit of the New York Police Department that aired on CBS. The show's pilot had been scheduled to air, but several affiliates refused to show it. CBS aired another episode that turned out to be the only one that was aired out of the thirteen episodes that were produced.[7]
- The Rich List (US version)
- 2006 game show by the British producers of Weakest Link and Dog Eat Dog. It was heavily promoted on Fox during the World Series. Two days after the broadcast of the premiere episode, The Rich List was axed after one airing. [8]
- South of Sunset
- 1993 private detective show on CBS starring Glenn Frey of rock band The Eagles. This was the first U.S.-produced series to be cancelled after one episode since 1969 and was heavily promoted during the World Series. The remaining five episodes eventually aired on the VH1 cable network a year later.
- Turn-On
- 1969 poorly received derivative of Laugh-In which aired on ABC. Although not the first series to be immediately cancelled, Turn-On is generally considered the best-known example. It's considered one of the most notorious flops in television history. Some local markets cancelled the show midway through the broadcast, but the story that it was yanked midway through its first episode nationwide is untrue. After the first show, the sponsor (Bristol-Myers) cancelled.
- Viva Laughlin
- 2007 musical comedy-drama that takes place at a casino in Laughlin, Nevada based on the BBC series Blackpool. While CBS cancelled the Hugh Jackman-produced series after two episodes aired just three days apart, Australia's Nine Network cancelled Viva Laughlin just one day after its first episode aired on Nine.[9][10]
- Who's Whose?
- 1951 game show hosted by Phil Baker that aired on CBS. Four celebrity panelists tried to determine which of three contestants was married to a fourth contestant. This show was brought in on short notice to replace The Goldbergs, which was dropped when its creator Gertrude Berg refused to fire the blacklisted actor Philip Loeb. [11]
- Who's Your Daddy?
- 2005 reality series on Fox that involved an adopted woman trying to pick her biological father out of a group of imposters. The show attracted protest from adoptive families and adoption-rights groups before airing.
- The Will
- 2005 reality TV show on CBS in which family members and friends competed to be named the beneficiary of a will. [12]
- You're in the Picture
- 1961 game show that aired on CBS starring Jackie Gleason; notable in part for Gleason going on the air the next week and saying of the show: "That show we did last week made a real H-Bomb look like a two fingered salute." Technically the series wasn't cancelled, but rather Gleason renamed it The Jackie Gleason Show and it became a talk show for the remainder of its limited run. Since the series substantially changed format, as well as its title, after one episode, it is usually referenced as having lasted a single episode, with the later talk show being considered a separate series. [13]
List of television series cancelled after two episodes, seen back-to-back on premiere night
While the following broadcast series do not belong in the above list because they were cancelled after the airing of their second episode, they are noted because the two episodes were aired in back-to-back fashion, without repeats, on the same evening and before cancellation:
- Anchorwoman
- 2007 comedy/reality series about Lauren Jones, a model who became a television news anchor. The show was canceled by FOX on August 23, 2007, just one day following its August 22 premiere, due to a disappointing 2.0 Fast National rating. However, its premiere was one-hour, consisting of two thirty minute episodes presented as one hour.[14]
- Beware of Dog
- 2002 sitcom on Animal Planet; two episodes presented back-to-back on August 13, 2002 for the only appearance of the series on U.S. television.[15] The show featured Look Who's Talking-style observations (voiced by Park Bench) by a stray dog named Jack who was adopted by a suburban family.[16][17]
References
- ^ Gerald Stone. "In the line of fire", The Sydney Morning Herald, 2005-12-31, p. 2.
- ^ Co-ed Fever episode list from TV.com
- ^ Imdb.com listing for Comedians Unleashed
- ^ Washington Post article: "Steve's Reason Why Not" - article on cancellation of Emily's Reasons Why Not
- ^ Imdb.com listing of Lawless
- ^ Announcement of The Master cancellation from The Daily Telegraph
- ^ Imdb listing for Public Morals
- ^ http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/ustv/a38965/fox-pulls-eamonn-holmes-game-show.html "Fox pulls Eamonn Holmes game show" Digital Spy
- ^ ""Hugh Jackman's show Viva Laughlin dumped by Channel Nine"", The Daily Telegraph, 2007-10-23. Retrieved on 2007-10-29.
- ^ ""Back from the dud"", The Sydney Morning Herald, 2007-10-25. Retrieved on 2007-10-29.
- ^ Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable Shows (2003) ISBN 0-345-45542-8
- ^ CBS cancels 'The Will' after only one episode broadcast
- ^ Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable Shows (2003) ISBN 0-345-45542-8
- ^ Ratings for Wednesday, August 22 - The Futon Critic
- ^ Episode list of Beware of Dog on epguides.com
- ^ Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable Shows (2003) ISBN 0-345-45542-8
- ^ New York Times review of Beware of Dog
