Some shows go past their prime, some never find their footing,
and some just don't do what executives want them to do. From "Bull" to "Batwoman" to
"Baby-Sitters Club," a lot of TV shows have already been canceled in 2022,
and we're here to let you know the reasons why they got the ax.
Fitting right in on CBS' schedule full of crime and legal procedurals,
Bull is about the previously little-known world of jury consulting. Inspired by the former career
of talk show host and executive producer Dr. Phil McGraw, it ran for six seasons on CBS,
spending its first two years among the top 10 most-watched programs on broadcast TV.
But then on January 18, 2022, lead actor Michael Weatherly tweeted that he was ready to leave Bull,
and CBS then opted to cancel the show rather than continue on without its anchor. And besides, after
six seasons, the show was no longer the ratings juggernaut it once was, ranking as the eighth-most
watched CBS drama among all viewers and dead last in the sought-after 18-to-49 demographic.
"But I feel confident that we can turn that around … in another generation or two."
In January 2022, ABC launched Promised Land, a throwback to the primetime soap operas of
the 70s and 80s. It was set at a picturesque California winery, detailing the machinations
and romantic entanglements of several generations of a sprawling, spoiled family.
Alas, Promised Land brought in the lowest 18-to-49 numbers of any ABC drama in the 2021 to 22 season,
and it lasted just five episodes on the primetime schedule. Subsequent installments were then
dropped directly on Hulu. While creator Matt Lopez claimed on Instagram that the move didn't equal a
cancellation, the low ratings and unceremonious dumping make a second season highly unlikely.
Robert Langdon is a world-renowned symbolist,
the go-to expert for finding clues in ancient works of art and historical artifacts to uncover
far-reaching conspiracies. He's the hero of multiple bestselling novels by Dan Brown,
as well as The Lost Symbol, a 2020 Peacock original starring Ashley Zukerman as Langdon.
Brown's novels were all massive bestsellers, and three big-screen adaptations starring
Tom Hanks earned a worldwide box office of more than $1.4 billion. But each film made
less than the previous, and the last one hit theaters more than five years
before The Lost Symbol debuted. So perhaps Robert Langdon's time has simply passed.
In January 2022, Peacock canceled the show, with a source telling Variety
that the streamer and producers figured they'd told a full story in one season.
Netflix's Gentefied is set in East Los Angeles, as it explores
the experiences of Latinos trying to make their way in a gentrifying neighborhood.
It centers on the Morales family as they keep their grandfather's restaurant open, pursue their
own dreams, and fight against the twin menaces of immigration officials and gentrification.
Despite early signs of success including strong critical notices,
Gentefied traded in quality over quantity and never attracted a sizable audience or at least
not one large enough for Netflix to justify a third season. The streamer doesn't release
specific viewership numbers for any of its shows, but according to Deadline, the
second and ultimately final season of Gentefied never made an appearance on the Netflix Top 10.
Ann M. Martin's beloved Baby-Sitters Club books are cultural touchstones for many
readers who grew up in the 80s and 90s and lapped up the heartwarming stories
of tween girl small business owners in suburban Connecticut. The books have been adapted before,
but Netflix's version that debuted in 2020 earned an outsized amount of praise.
Despite this critical success, The Baby-Sitters Club was canceled in March 2022
after two seasons. In an interview with Vulture, creator Rachel Shukert revealed that even though
the series pulled in solid viewership numbers, it may not have been watched in
the manner most preferable to Netflix. Shukert hypothesized that the streamer wants to devote
more resources to widely appealing shows that are immediately binge-watched upon release and
draw in new markets, rather than quieter shows with a more niche audience.
"But still, everyone got a little of what they needed that day."
Netflix was highly motivated to land Space Force, which premiered in May 2020. It marked the return
to series TV for Steve Carell and his reunion with The Office showrunner Greg Daniels. In a
satire of government life during the Donald Trump administration, Carell played an Air
Force general picked to head up the fledgling new branch of the military known as Space Force.
The second season dropped in February 2022, with a new co-showrunner and production transferred
from Los Angeles to Vancouver. These changes were undertaken to improve the show's critical quality
and buzz, as well as to cut costs. The first season was among the most expensive shows on
contemporary TV, but the viewership figures didn't justify such an expense, especially after April
2022, when Netflix reported a massive subscriber loss and endured a $55 billion decline in value.
Within a week of that financial disaster, Space Force was permanently grounded.
Batwoman was part of The CW's ambitious and expansive
"Arrowverse" of interconnected superhero shows, initially starring Ruby Rose as
hero Kate Kane and then Javicia Leslie as criminal-turned-caped crusader Ryan Wilder.
Showrunner Caroline Dries broke the news on Twitter in April 2022 that the show would not
be returning for a fourth season. As reported by Variety, The CW might be cleaning house of its
underperforming scripted series as it prepares for an ownership change. It's currently owned
by WarnerMedia and ViacomCBS, with Nexstar Media Group preparing to buy a majority stake.
Batwoman was among the least-watched shows on the network in the 2021 to 2022 season,
averaging around 760,000 viewers, a drop of 20 percent from the previous frame.
DC's Legends of Tomorrow follows a rotating crew of young superheroes, villains, and rogues
who move through space, time, and the universe to prevent apocalypses and other threats to humanity.
It was part of The CW's Arrowverse, which dominated the network in the 2010s but has
since been shrinking. In the upcoming 2022 to 2023 season, the only shows remaining in the franchise
will be the relatively young Superman and Lois and The Flash in its ninth and likely final season.
Legends of Tomorrow was among the oldest and least popular Arrowverse shows, concluding after
seven seasons and attracting fewer viewers than the superhero shows that survived.
It reportedly pulled in an average of just 860,000 watchers in what wound up being its final season.
Less than a month after the ax fell, The CW continued to clear out its schedule
and production slate when it canceled seven more hour-long dramas, including Dynasty,
Charmed, 4400, Roswell New Mexico, In the Dark, Legacies, and Naomi.
"Those suckers are gonna pay for this."
Countless millennials look back fondly on the elaborately-produced kids' game show
Legends of the Hidden Temple. Like a mini Indiana Jones-style adventure in a competitive format,
the 90s series pitted six duos against each other as they raided a supposedly
ancient temple lorded over by a talking stone head named Olmec in search of a priceless artifact.
Like many fondly remembered 90s shows, Legends of the Hidden Temple earned a reboot when it
arrived on The CW in October 2021. This revamped, bigger-budget version boasts an elaborate set
and features grown-up contestants instead of kids. Comedian Cristela Alonzo hosts,
while Dee Bradley Baker reprises the role of Olmec, who remains as
eerily impressive as ever. Sadly, the revamped Legends was met with historically bad ratings,
as it reportedly averaged fewer than 300,000 viewers. Unsurprisingly then, it was canceled
in June 2022. Perhaps the nostalgia craze that's been gripping TV lately is finally over,
or maybe the new Legends of the Hidden Temple simply failed to recapture the original's music.
The 2021 to 2022 season marks the 14th straight year that CBS has been able to
call itself the most-watched TV network in the United States. Thus, compared to other networks,
it has higher and more narrow standards of what constitutes a hit and which shows
are worthy of renewal. That was especially apparent in May 2022, when CBS canceled one
long-running drama and three sitcoms with middling-to-low viewership figures.
Such a culling makes way for a slew of new series more in line with the network's hit crime dramas.
The axed shows were B Positive, United States of Al, and How We Roll,
as well as the Magnum P.I. remake, which was later picked up by NBC. At the same time,
CBS ordered three new dramas: cop show East New York, legal series So Help Me Todd,
and firefighter yarn Fire Country. So Help Me Todd at least sounds like it'll be good for a
laugh every now and then, but you couldn't really call it a comedy, and that's just fine with CBS.
"Maybe I should just let you be who you want to be."
One of the most visually striking sci-fi shows in recent memory,
Raised by Wolves revolves around two androids, Mother and Father, who are programmed to raise
six human children on a dangerous alien planet. They create a solid space colony,
but all their hard work is threatened when a theological conflict erupts.
TNT ordered Raised by Wolves back in 2018, but it would ultimately premiere on HBO Max in 2020. Both
seasons of the show earned strong reviews, but the series couldn't overcome its behind-the-scenes
shuffling. In April 2022, WarnerMedia and Discovery Inc. merged to form a new media company,
Warner Bros. Discovery. According to Raised By Wolves star Abubakar Salim, this merger brought
an early end to many productions, including the sleek sci-fi show. He expressed hope, however,
that it might be picked up and continue on another platform if enough fans push for a rescue.
Following Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys,
The CW's Tom Swift was the latest gritty, contemporary reimagining of a decades-old
young adult novel series. Loosely based on the books that first appeared in print in 1910,
Tian Richards portrayed the title billionaire and tech genius who wages war with a shadowy global
conspiracy he believes is responsible for the disappearance of his father.
In the books, Tom Swift was a white teenage inventor, while on the show, he's a gay,
Black billionaire in his 20s. But that big change did little to grab audiences' attention. The
ratings were strikingly low, with a negligible 0.1 rating in the coveted 18 to 49 demographic.
As reported by Deadline, the show's edgy content may have been what really led to its demise,
as Nexstar Media Group is set to acquire The CW
and reportedly isn't interested in programming that isn't squeaky clean.
Debuting in February 2020, Fox's quick-witted animated family sitcom Duncanville arrived
packed with talent. Co-created by Amy Poehler and longtime Simpsons writer Mike Scully,
the show revolved around a wildly mediocre but self-aggrandizing teenage boy named
Duncan, voiced by Poehler. A typical episode featured him bristling against
parental control and hanging out with his crew of ne'er-do-well friends.
Alas, Duncanville just couldn't perform at a competitive enough level for Fox,
which boasts more animated shows in production than it has the space for on its Sunday night
animation block. With established hits like The Simpsons, Bob's Burgers, and Family Guy, and newer
entries like Housebroken and The Great North, the network also had to make room for upcoming
cartoons Krapopolis, produced by Community creator Dan Harmon, and Grimsburg, starring Jon Hamm.
The ratings for Duncanville Season 3 were so bad, averaging 530,000 viewers per episode,
that Fox pulled it off the schedule and at some point will dump six unaired episodes onto Hulu.
"Ugh, leaving, bye."
Why Women Kill is a darkly comic crime anthology
detailing the events that lead up to the titular murders. Debuting on CBS All Access in 2019,
the first season concerned three different time periods where the same Pasadena house
and cheating were involved. Season 2 followed in 2021 on CBS All Access successor Paramount+
with a standalone story about a new character driven to commit homicide.
In December 2021, Paramount+ ordered a new set of episodes of
Why Women Kill. The show reportedly placed high on a top 10 list of the streamer's
most popular and visible programs. The new slate of episodes went into pre-production,
but then on July 1, 2022, Paramount+ reversed course and decided that it
didn't want any more Why Women Kill after all and canceled the series after just two seasons.
Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus,
even more Looper videos about your favorite movies and TV shows are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.