2020 has been a year of bad news, and things aren't much different in the world of television.
Sadly, a number of much-loved TV series have come to an end this
year. Here's the real reason these TV shows were cancelled in 2020.
The reality police show Cops began all the way back in March 1989 and continued airing
new episodes for 30 years. This is despite the show being canceled by its original network home,
Fox, in May 2013 before getting a second lease on life at Spike TV, which later became the Paramount
Network. After Spike picked up the series, studio president Kevin Kay told The Hollywood Reporter:
"Cops is a remarkable series that has been able to sustain strong ratings well into its third decade,
a monumental achievement in television."
But this "remarkable series" wouldn't last forever, and in June 2020,
the Paramount Network made the announcement that Cops had finally reached the end of the line.
The show's abrupt ending came in the wake of worldwide protests against race-based police
brutality; a matter that many critics have long accused Cops of minimizing.
According to The New York Times, in 2013, civil rights group Color of Change proclaimed:
"[The show's producers] have built a profit model around
distorted and dehumanizing portrayals of black Americans and the criminal justice system."
In the wake of 2020's protests over police brutality, these complaints found a renewed
sense of impact and likely influenced the show's cancellation. This wasn't the only reason Cops
ended, though. For example, Cops' future wasn't helped by the fact that, according to Deadline:
"Paramount Network has been moving away from all unscripted programming."
In October 2020, Vulture reported that Cops was briefly resuming production, but only,
quote, "to 'fulfill commitments' to overseas territories." These episodes won't air in the U.S.
Arrow was to the Arrowverse what Iron Man was to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
A barrage of superhero shows spun off from this Green Arrow TV show,
which kicked off its run in October 2012. But everything ends eventually,
and so it was with Arrow, which aired its final episode on January 28th, 2020. The news of Arrow's
final season was announced via a tweet by the show's lead actor, Stephen Amell, who tweeted:
"Playing Oliver Queen has been the greatest professional experience of my life... but
you can't be a vigilante forever. Arrow will return for a final run of 10 episodes
this Fall. There's so much to say... for now I just want to say thank you."
Amell later expanded on his thoughts on leaving the show, revealing that he was the primary
impetus for the show's end and that he had originally hoped Arrow could go on without him.
"The iconography of Green Arrow has always been something that’s bigger than
me or any other actor that’s playing him or voicing him."
Like Iron Man, Arrow is now gone from the
universe he began but the show's legacy will doubtless live on.
When it debuted on ABC in February 2015, the sitcom Fresh Off the Boat was the first network
primetime show to feature an Asian-American family in 20 years. As Eddie Huang, whose
memoir the series was based on, said to over 1,000 guests at Fresh Off the Boat's premiere party:
"Today, we've arrived."
Starring Randall Park and Constance Wu, the landmark program would go on to run for six
seasons. After exceeding 100 episodes, ABC announced that Fresh Off the Boat would
be pulling into port for good, once its sixth season wrapped up in February 2020.
In a statement regarding the show's cancellation, ABC president Karey Burke said:
"We couldn't be prouder of this game-changing show and
the impact it has had on our cultural landscape."
Burke didn't give a specific reason for the show's cancellation. However, Variety later noted:
"The series had seen its ratings decline as it
went on and was moved to Friday nights for its fifth season."
Diminishing ratings would easily explain the show's cancellation,
as would the increasingly busy schedules of its lead actors. Nevertheless, the powerful
legacy of Fresh Off the Boat is certain to keep on resonating for years to come.
In June 2019, The Good Place creator Michael Schur dropped a bombshell about
his beloved NBC comedy: the show would be wrapping up after its fourth season.
Where many of the cancellations in 2020 happened at the whims of network executives,
The Good Place ended exactly when its creator wanted it to. Schur explained:
"After The Good Place was picked up for season two, the writing staff and I began to map out,
as best we could, the trajectory of the show. Given the ideas we wanted
to explore, and the pace at which we wanted to present those ideas,
I began to feel like four seasons just over 50 episodes was the right lifespan."
This aligned with prior comments Schur had made about the temporary nature of The Good Place.
In particular, Schur mentioned to The Hollywood Reporter in December 2018:
"This is not a show that is destined to be on for nine years. It's not a 200-episode,
Friends kind of a deal. It's not a hangout show."
It's understandable if Good Place fans wanted the show to go on forever after all,
nobody wants to see their favorite show come to an end. But those fans
can at least rest assured that Schur and his team were satisfied with the final series,
and that The Good Place got to end on its own forking terms.
"Take it sleazy."
The original Penny Dreadful, which also ended before its time in 2016,
received widespread critical acclaim. The first season's Rotten Tomatoes consensus declared that:
"Skillfully shot and superbly acted,
Penny Dreadful is perplexing in a good way even if it's a bit silly at times."
More than that, the original series also established its own dedicated fanbase. So,
given how widely liked the program was, it was inevitable that a spin-off would continue the
Penny Dreadful saga. Enter Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, which took the franchise
across the pond to Los Angeles, gave it a fresh 1930s setting and featured a brand new cast.
While the show's creator, John Logan, publicly teased details for a second season of City of
Angels, the spin-off sadly wasn't made to last. In a statement, the show's network Showtime said:
"Showtime has decided not to move forward with another season of Penny Dreadful:
City of Angels. We would like to thank executive producers John Logan,
Michael Aguilar and the entire cast and crew for their outstanding work on this project."
No reason was given for the cancellation, but speculation has attributed it to low viewership.
According to ScreenRant, the series premiere only brought in around 800,000 viewers,
and things only went downhill from there. By the finale, only around 650,000 people were watching.
With numbers like that, it's probably no surprise that City of Angels was sent straight to TV hell.
In May 2019, Deadline wrote:
"Netflix might be rewriting the rulebook with a business
model that involves shows often running for two to three seasons."
Sadly, this practice has led to criminally-short runs for shows like Daredevil and Altered Carbon.
One exception to this rule, however, is the Ashton Kutcher sitcom The Ranch.
The half-hour comedy kicked off its run in April 2016 and proceeded to go on for
eight seasons and 80 episodes before finally wrapping up in January 2020.
Reporting on the show's cancellation, Deadline suggested that the show had never
been expected to go on beyond four seasons. The idea that The Ranch would go out on its
own terms was reflected in comments by its leading man, who told WTF with Marc Maron:
"The story [of The Ranch] was told. I love everything that we did.
Netflix owns the show, so it's not like there was
this big syndication boon that's going to come if we shoot two more seasons."
And although The Ranch has been put out to pasture,
it can at least hold its head high since it managed to surpass Fuller
House and claim the title of Netflix's longest-running multi-camera comedy.
In 2019, Variety announced:
"The 'Empire' has fallen. Fox announced Monday that
music drama Empire's recently announced sixth season will be the show's last."
The news came as a shock for Empire creator Lee Daniels,
however, who didn't expect the show to end so soon. He told The Wrap:
"I was surprised, honestly. I was told that it was possible this could happen but it has become
realer and realer the closer we get to the end and I am sad. Sad that our show is done."
So just why did Empire crumble after six seasons?
Fox gave no official word on the matter, but The Hollywood Reporter noted that the show's
shift to being a Disney-owned show likely played a part in the matter. The outlet also noted that
Jussie Smollett's ongoing legal affairs probably had an impact on the show's premature end. It
also can't be forgotten that Empire suffered a sharp drop in ratings over the years, going from
9.9 million viewers for its series premiere to just 2.9 million viewers for the series finale.
The reasons for Empire's abrupt ending were many, though the drama surrounding
the show didn't end with its cancellation. Unfortunately,
the 20-episode final season was cut down by two episodes due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This didn't just result in a shorter season it meant that Empire's intended
series finale was never filmed, wrapping the show's run on a very sour note indeed.
For a long time, it appeared that Supernatural would never end.
Having kicked off in September 2005, the fantastical exploits of Sam and
Dean Winchester managed to go on for 15 seasons and a whopping 320 episodes.
And sure, the dynamic duo managed to conquer a variety of otherworldly beings in that timespan.
But even they couldn't defeat the prospect of cancellation. The news that Supernatural's
15th season would be its last was announced via Jared Padalecki's Instagram account. He wrote:
"Dear #spnfamily, Season 1 @jensenackles and I want you to know that next season,
SEASON 15, will be the last season of #supernatural."
Fellow lead actor Jensen Ackles said the decision to
end the show was an intentional one, explaining:
"It was months and months if not years of discussion between he and I,
between the rest of the cast, between crew, between our writers, between our producers,
between the studio, between the network. Nobody wanted to see this show fizzle out."
True to form, Supernatural's final season has managed to go on much longer than expected.
The series was originally set to conclude in May 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic shut down filming
for the final season. The production was only able to resume in August, meaning that the Supernatural
series finale won't air until November 19th 2020 five months later than originally intended.
Netflix's first original animated cartoon aimed at adults kicked off its run in August 2014.
Initial reviews were mixed, but it wasn't long before BoJack
Horseman had become one of the most critically-acclaimed shows around.
"Oh no, the responsibilities are already starting!"
In particular, BoJack was lauded for its inimitable mix of lighthearted humor and
heart-wrenching forays into addiction, depression,
and the dark side of Hollywood. The show's Rotten Tomatoes consensus for season six reads:
"Bittersweet and brilliant to the very end, BoJack Horseman's final season manages to keep surprising
viewers with its empathy and depth, solidifying its place as one of TV's greatest offerings."
And, at long last, BoJack Horseman came to an end in January 2020. The conclusion was not
one imposed by the show's creator, Raphael Bob-Waksberg, but rather came from Netflix,
which gave Bob-Waksberg advanced warning that the end was near. As he told IndieWire:
"They don't have to do that, obviously. But I said I would appreciate it if I could have
the forewarning to give the show a proper finale, and not set up some cliffhangers
that will never pay off. So when they picked up season six, they said, 'Hey,
remember how you asked for that heads-up? We think that this is your heads-up.'"
While BoJack Horseman may have come to an end, it at least went out on a genuine high
and cemented itself as one of the funniest and most emotional shows of the last decade.
Really, in the end, isn't that all you can ask for?
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