It's a tough world out there in the TV industry.
For every megahit, there's another show that fails to find an audience.
Sometimes, it's a reflection on a series' quality, but in the era of peak TV, that isn't
always the case.
Often, great TV flies under the radar due to the sheer amount of content viewers have
to choose from every week.
With that in mind, let's take a look at why these shows were canceled in 2018.
Ash vs. Evil Dead
Starz canceled Ash vs. Evil Dead in April, allowing the story to wrap up with the third
season finale.
A follow-up to Sam Raimi's Evil Dead films, the series brought back Bruce Campbell as
the titular demon slayer.
Campbell seemed willing to go on playing Ash forever, calling it "the role of a lifetime,"
but Starz pulled the plug in an effort to refine its slate of scripted originals.
The series launched with 437,000 same-day viewers, but its ratings fell over its run,
eventually dropping to just 175,000.
Although those numbers probably jumped when DVR views were added in, that's still a disappointing
figure for an established property with a big name star.
The Exorcist
Fox's supernatural drama The Exorcist, a sequel to the 1973 film of the same name, starred
Alfonso Herrera and Ben Daniels as a pair of priests searching for evil.
It was well-received by critics, but it never pulled in huge audience numbers.
The second season averaged just 1.9 million viewers and only a 0.6 rating in the key 18-to-49
demo.
Although many fans were upset, showrunner Jeremy Slater said that they shouldn't blame
the network for its decision.
He tweeted,
"I know it's easy to get angry at Fox, but the reality is that we were the lowest-rated
drama on any network and they still brought us back for a second season, because they
loved the show.
There are no bad guys in this scenario."
The Last Man on Earth
Fox sitcom The Last Man on Earth had its last season on Earth in 2018.
It starred Will Forte as the lone survivor of a lethal, worldwide virus.
Or at least he seemed to be alone at first.
He was eventually joined by other survivors, including characters played by Kristen Schaal,
January Jones, Mel Rodriguez, Cleopatra Coleman, and Mary Steenburgen.
The fourth and final season ended on a cliffhanger, leaving fans hugely disappointed.
The series was the casualty of a Fox comedy blitz, as the network canceled all of its
live-action sitcoms.
The show did earn five Emmy nominations over its run, including two for Forte, but that
wasn't enough to keep it on the air.
It's enough to make you sick.
"Oh my God."
Lucifer
The devil was officially out at Fox in 2018 when the network canceled Lucifer after three
seasons.
The show starred Tom Ellis as the fallen angel, who had retired from Hell and moved to Los
Angeles, working double duty as a nightclub owner and a consultant for the LAPD.
Although Lucifer averaged just 4.1 million viewers and a 1.1 rating in the 18 to 49 demo
in its last season, it was still beloved by fans, who immediately started campaigning
to find a new home for the drama.
Their enthusiasm paid off, as Netflix picked up Lucifer for a fourth season.
Sometimes it pays to make a deal with the devil.
The Mick
Kaitlin Olson has enjoyed a long run on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia…
"Say guys, what's the deal with those hands free headsets that everybody's wearing in
their ears right?"
...but her luck wasn't quite as good for her Fox sitcom The Mick, which was canceled after
just two seasons.
Olson played Mickey, an irresponsible wild child who gets stuck with taking care of her
sister's rich, spoiled children.
Although The Mick received a mostly positive critical reception, it failed to build on
its mild buzz, averaging just 3.1 million viewers over its two seasons.
That might have been good enough for renewal in a normal year, but with Fox's acquisition
of NFL Thursday Night Football, the network had much less space on its schedule.
The Mick was just one of several casualties.
"Mickey, it was one thing when you were squatting in our mansion but now you're costing us money."
"Alright, alright."
Mozart in the Jungle
Amazon left the music behind in 2018, canceling its drama Mozart in the Jungle after four
seasons.
Based on oboist Blair Tindall's 2005 memoir, the show starred Gael Garcia Bernal as the
new conductor of the New York Symphony.
The show was critically acclaimed, winning Golden Globes for Best Series and Best Actor
for Bernal in 2016.
Its cancellation comes as Amazon tries to shift its programming towards bigger dramas
with more international appeal, in the vein of HBO's massively successful Game of Thrones.
Mozart was just the first casualty of this new directive.
Once Upon a Time
ABC's fairy tale drama Once Upon a Time has lost a lot of viewers over the years, but
it managed to stay popular enough with a loyal group of fans to earn an unexpected seventh
season renewal in 2017.
That renewal also came with a massive creative overhaul, with much of the principal cast
replaced by newcomers.
Despite the reboot, Once Upon a Time still struggled in the ratings, and Season 7 became
its last.
ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey called it a "bittersweet" goodbye.
With the show averaging 2.5 million viewers, down 20 percent from the year before, the
writing was clearly on the wall.
The Path
It seemed like Hulu landed something big with The Path, starring a fresh-off-Breaking-Bad
Aaron Paul and Golden Globe nominee Michelle Monaghan as husband-and-wife members of a
cult-like religion.
Despite the series' impressive pedigree, it only lasted three seasons.
Hulu doesn't release ratings, so it's unclear what kind of viewership the show was pulling
in, but it never received the critical acclaim to match its premise and cast.
While it garnered decent reviews, the fact that it never received any major awards nominations
was probably the nail in the coffin.
The leads' expensive paychecks probably didn't help either.
Roseanne
ABC's Roseanne reboot was met with controversy right out of the gate, thanks to star Roseanne
Barr's politics, which eventually led to the sitcom getting pulled off the air.
ABC reversed its initial renewal decision after Barr tweeted racist and Islamophobic
statements about former White House advisor Valerie Jarrett.
Announcing the show's cancellation, ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey said,
"Roseanne's Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values,
and we have decided to cancel her show."
"I was being nice!
She's a crazy, stupid hillbilly!"
It was a stunning decision, considering that Roseanne was the highest rated scripted show
on broadcast television that season, averaging 19.3 million viewers.
Ultimately, those numbers were too good for ABC to let go of completely: a Roseanne-free
spinoff, dubbed The Conners, was announced in late June.
Shades of Blue
Jennifer Lopez's star power wasn't enough to keep her cop drama Shades of Blue on the
air.
Starring Lopez as a single mother and NYPD detective recruited to work on the FBI's anti-corruption
task force, the show was canceled after three seasons.
The final season is currently airing over the summer.
Lopez, who also serves as an executive producer, has said that there will be a "poetic three-season
arc" to the way her character's story ends.
Although averaging seven million viewers in Season 2, it seems that keeping a star as
pricey as Lopez wasn't worth it for NBC.
Taken
Being based on a well-known film series isn't enough to ensure a TV show's success.
Such was the case for the NBC drama Taken, a prequel to the Liam Neeson flicks of the
same name.
The show, which starred Clive Standen as a younger version of Neeson's Bryan Mills, was
canceled after airing two seasons.
It followed Mills during his days as a former Green Beret and member of an elite team of
covert operatives tasked with conducting dangerous rescue missions around the world.
After a lackluster critical reception in season one, Taken experienced a major cast overhaul
and brought on a new showrunner for year two, but that wasn't enough.
The show was NBC's lowest-rated drama in the 18 to 49 demo.
Mills may have a very special set of skills, but bringing in viewers apparently isn't one
of them.
Timeless
Timeless came back from cancellation once, but it couldn't pull off that same trick twice.The
show starred Abigail Spencer, Malcolm Barrett, and Matt Lanter as a history professor, scientist,
and soldier tasked with traveling through time to prevent the alteration of history.
It struggled in the ratings from the get-go, and thanks to an expensive budget due, to
constant changes in costumes and settings, NBC decided to pull the plug after its first
season.
However, the network wound up reversing that decision just a few days later, after fan
outcry from viewers who dubbed themselves "Clockblockers."
Although those fans were just as active on social media calling for a renewal after season
two's cliffhanger ending, NBC ultimately canceled the show again thanks to continued lackluster
ratings.
And this time, it looks like it's permanent.