Every TV show has to come to an end eventually.
Some end of the creators' own accord.
Even more are canceled by the network that airs them.
Here are some of the saddest reasons ever that TV shows were forced to end their runs.
COVID-19 put a nearly uniform stop to most of show business, along with the rest of the
world.
Almost every TV and movie production came to a screeching halt.
Many projects got pushed back, and at least one was canceled mid-production: Netflix wrestling
dramedy "GLOW."
Even though it had several unresolved storylines, the show was canceled because of the unique
difficulties it presented.
"GLOW" was three weeks into filming its fourth season when the world changed in March 2020.
Netflix spent the next seven months trying to find a safe way to restart production,
but the particular circumstances were too difficult to overcome.
The show was shot in Los Angeles, a COVID hotspot in and of itself.
Even worse, the show's core was wrestling — an activity that requires physical contact
and heavy breathing in close quarters.
Combine all this with the show being a high budget ensemble piece with about 20 principal
cast members, and Netflix just couldn't find a way to make it work safely.
Deadline broke the inevitable news on October 5, 2020: Netflix had canceled "GLOW."
Series creators Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch shared,
"COVID has killed actual humans.
It's a national tragedy and should be our focus.
COVID also apparently took down our show."
Thankfully, there are no reports of anyone involved in the production catching COVID,
and all the series regulars were paid in full.
The cast has since expressed interest in a feature length movie to wrap up the story.
Robert Schimmel's life was more tragedy than comedy, up to and including his 2010 death
in a car accident.
One such tragedy was the story surrounding his planned sitcom, "Schimmel" — and how
it never got past the pilot.
In 1999, Schimmel signed on to do a sitcom with 20th Century Fox.
Mike Scully, executive producer of "The Simpsons," was set to have a hand in it.
A pilot was shot — in which a very young Brie Larson played his daughter — and got
picked up by the Fox network in 2000.
Mere days after the announcement, however, Schimmel was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma and given six months to live.
Production on his sitcom stopped while he went into treatment, and he managed to make
a full recovery.
Variety reported in January 2001 that production was intended to resume, but the network axed
it after the schedule got a little too crowded.
The pilot's cold open surfaced on YouTube in 2006 and Schimmel posted some outtakes
to his Facebook page in August 2010.
"Friend Me," announced in early 2012, was to follow two friends who moved from Indiana
to Los Angeles to work at Groupon.
How they ended up with that show title for characters in that line of work remains a
mystery.
Attached to star was Christopher Mintz-Plasse.
Yeah, McLovin.
“I am McLovin.”
Also attached was Nicholas Braun.
He would insist on venturing out into their new city while the other would remain a homebody
trying to keep his Midwest roots.
Unfortunately, due to real life tragedy, it never made it to air.
"Friend Me" was co-created by Alan Kirschenbaum, a veteran TV writer who was best known as
the creator of "Yes, Dear."
In October 2012, Kirschenbaum was found dead in his home of a suspected suicide.
This, among many other things, put the show — which had yet to debut — in a state
of limbo.
After months of delays and uncertainty, then-CBS President Les Moonves confirmed at an August
2013 TCA press event that there were no plans to show or burn off the episodes.
As such, the show remains unaired to this day.
Few "Doctor Who" spinoffs were more enduring than "The Sarah Jane Adventures."
Investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith, played by Elisabeth Sladen, was one of the
longest tenured characters on television.
This made all the more impressive that she came from a series marked entirely by change.
"The Sarah Jane Adventures" was aimed at a young audience and followed Sarah Jane on
her investigative alien journeys.
“I saw amazing things out there in space.”
The show was a huge hit, and it was stopped by the only thing that could have stopped
it: Sladen's death.
Producer Brian Minchin told Doctor Who Magazine in 2016 that the BBC loved the show and expected
to get more seasons after the current one wrapped.
Then in early 2011, Sladen called producer Russell T. Davies and informed him that she
had cancer and didn't have long to live.
The crew, over 100 people, kept it secret.
Between the death of their star and the ensuing heartbreak, all parties involved decided to
regretfully end the show.
Minchin did have a curious note, though:
"Russell emailed me not so long ago saying, 'We shouldn't have stopped, should we?'
He thinks we canceled the show out of shock.
And he's right.
It was such a lovely show, and Lis was fantastic."
On April 19, 2020, the nine-year anniversary of her death, Davies put together a final
episode: "Farewell, Sarah Jane," which depicted a memorial service for the title character.
"Grace Under Fire" was one of the first big hits from TV megaproducer Chuck Lorre.
The show starred Brett Butler as Grace, a single mother raising her kids after a divorce.
Grace was a recovering alcoholic, while Butler herself was anything but recovered.
This caused problems for her and everyone around her, which ultimately ended the show.
Butler became infamous for her volatile backstage behavior, with a bad temperament and a drug
addiction that kept feeding off each other.
She was known for berating her coworkers, which led to five executive producers over
a mere five years and the departure of two cast members.
Entertainment Weekly reported that the low point was "Vega$," a crossover event with
other popular sitcoms.
Production teams for the other shows were mortified by her behavior, which often delayed
production.
On top of her erratic behavior were her trips to rehab for painkiller addiction.
Each visit stopped production, dropped ratings, and just added to the frustration.
One of these trips was partway through Season 5.
Unable to handle Butler's erratic behavior anymore, ABC shut down the show.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, the production company claimed,
"We have decided to suspend production [...] so that Brett may have time to resolve some personal
issues."
Production never resumed.
"Megan Wants A Millionaire" was one of about a billion D-list celebrity dating shows from
the late 2000s.
It starred former "Rock of Love" contestant Megan Hauserman, who had a bunch of millionaires
compete to make her a trophy wife.
But the show got canceled before the end of the first season after one of the contestants
killed himself and someone else.
The contestant in question was real estate investor Ryan Jenkins.
The entire series was in the can by the time he committed his crime, so we know he came
in third.
Not long after he wrapped his part in the series, he married a woman named Jasmine Fiore,
only for the two to later separate.
Jenkins joined the cast of "I Love Money" season 3.
Fiore's body, which the New York Times described as "mutilated," was found in late April 2009,
and Jenkins fled to Canada after getting charged with killing her.
VH1 promptly canceled "Megan Wants A Millionaire" and left the last few episodes unaired.
Jenkins was later found dead in a motel in Hope, British Columbia, of an apparent suicide.
"I Love Money" season 3 was also preemptively pulled, never airing an episode.
"Ellen" was a hit sitcom in its time, but it will always be remembered for one thing:
"The Puppy Episode."
It saw the main character Ellen, played by Ellen DeGeneres, come out of the closet — not
long after DeGeneres herself did in real life.
"The Puppy Episode" drew monster ratings and got massive publicity, but it also marked
the beginning of the end for the show.
Going forward, DeGeneres and ABC clashed behind the scenes.
The New York Times reported that ABC tried to limit the number of LGBTQ storylines and
even at one time slapped a special viewer's advisory in front of the show.
DeGeneres was quick to point out that shows about heterosexual relationships had no such
warning.
GLAAD media director Chaz Bono noted to Variety the dangers in the show becoming, quote, "too
LGBTQ,” especially after it became important to the plots.
He said,
"This is network prime time.
When a show treats gay issues over and over again, it becomes 'a gay show,' and the average
viewer says, 'Hey, I'm not gay — I'm not going to watch it.'"
The show's ratings declined, and it's certainly possible that the audience and networks weren't
quite ready.
If the show's cancellation wasn't proof enough of this, the hit that Laura Dern's career
took was.
Dern, whose character made Ellen realize that she was gay, started getting death threats.
Dern hit a career peak with "Jurassic Park," but the backlash to "The Puppy Episode" meant
that she stopped getting offered roles for a significant period of time.
In 2017, CBS aired a sequel series to the classic Denzel Washington film "Training Day."
The show was clearly meant to be a major cornerstone for the network.
The production team included Antoine Fuqua, the director of the movie, and producer Jerry
Bruckheimer, and had a legit star in Bill Paxton.
Nonetheless, the show only garnered modest ratings — not exactly a smash hit.
Then the show hit a bigger issue.
After four episodes aired, Bill Paxton died at the age of 61.
All 13 episodes were in the can at the time, so production wasn't impeded, but that was
a small consolation given the sudden death of the well-liked star.
Many sources, including Deadline, predicted that Paxton's death guaranteed the show wouldn't
get another season.
This proved accurate: there was a small uptick in ratings after his death before they tanked.
"Training Day" already had a weak path forward, one that turned impossible without Paxton.
The Duggar family — all 19 kids and counting — made TLC a lot of money over the course
of two shows.
Both of these shows ended due to abrupt and upsetting circumstances.
The first show, "19 Kids and Counting," ran on the network from 2008 to 2015.
Viewers got to know the Duggar family, devout Baptists who didn't use birth control and
ended up with a massive, religious, homeschooled clan.
The show ended abruptly after it was revealed that Josh Duggar, one of the sons, molested
five girls over several years — made more sickening by the fact that four of them were
his own sisters.
TLC went to the well again with the spinoff "Counting On."
This show, which ran from 2015 to 2020, originally followed some of the older Duggar siblings
before roping in the rest of the family.
This, too, was canceled due to Josh Duggar.
As if his previous actions weren't disgusting enough, he now faces federal charges for receiving
and possessing child sexually abusive material.
Even though he wasn't part of the show, the name and the publicity was too much for all
involved — especially the network — to deal with in public.
"The Jeremy Kyle Show" was one of the longest-running tabloid talk shows in the UK.
For those unfamiliar, take a minute to imagine "The Jerry Springer Show" for a class of people
who call French fries "chips."
In typical tabloid talk fashion, things often got controversial, violent, and embarrassing.
A popular tool on the show was a lie detector, and it was one such segment that led to the
show finally getting canceled.
During the first week of May 2019, a man named Steve Dymond went on "The Jeremy Kyle Show"
to prove that he hadn't cheated on his ex-partner.
Dymond failed the lie detector test, and Kyle mocked him.
Family and friends report that Dymond, who was already diagnosed with depression and
on medication, was distressed and humiliated.
On May 9, Dymond was found dead in his home of a morphine overdose, which many suspected
to be a suicide.
The ITV network put out a statement expressing sympathies for Dymond's family and said,
"Given the gravity of recent events we have decided to end production of 'The Jeremy Kyle
Show.'"
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.