That, and also New Amsterdam, which I liked even better. (And which the creators swore up and down was NOT based on Pete Hemphill’s novel, but … well … )
** Cupid**, with Jeremy Piven and Paula Marshall, has only 15 episodes listed on IMDB. The recent remake did not fair any better, but it would be a stretch to call the remake great.
I may be the only one, but I think Space Rangers was a pretty good SF action series, canned after three episodes. It was hurt because CBS ran the episodes out of order and because it premiered a couple of weeks after ST:DS9 started. Trekkies were scornful of plot elements in it that they raved about in DS9*. And the show tried to be a little different – using bullets instead of ray guns, for instance. Still, CBS buried it and science fiction TV fans just weren’t ready to accept anything different from Star Trek.
*One complaint at the time: Space Rangers had someone hitting a device to get it running. Everyone complained that couldn’t happen. But yet, DS9 used exactly the same trick in its premiere.
Greg the Bunny had 33 episodes; one season of 13 episodes on Fox, and 20 episodes over two seasons on IFC.
I LOVED that show and I was PISSED!
Correction: Pete Hemphill? Where did I get that? I meant Pete Hamill.
I came in here to mention Journeyman. I was also very much enjoying My Own Worst Enemy this year before it died.
The Pirates of Dark Water (which ran 21 episodes, actually). If it was half as brilliant as my memories paint it, then it’s a tragedy that it was never completed. Unfortunately, it’s not available on DVD, so I can’t check.
The REALLY sad thing is that true TV junkies made the mental conversion. It can be a reflex.
Max Headroom had 14 shows.
I really liked My Own Worst Enemy as well. Would’ve been neat to see the agent deal with a stopped up toilet in the middle of the Christmas holidays.
Thanks for the great nominees. I have added several of them to my Netflix queue. (Of course, all of them seem to be available on one or two disks.)
Actually, the Greg the Bunny episodes on Fox are completely different from the IFC shorts. The shorts shown on IFC were only about 10 minutes long and were just film parodies and not actual episodes of the show. (Also, they weren’t nearly as funny. I don’t recommend them as they are a far cry from the show.)
I miss Crusade, and I still curse the nameless idiots who messed with it after promising not to then canceled it because they didn’t understand what they had.
Twerps. I hope all their toenails are forevermore ingrown. Painfully ingrown.
Salvage?
Harper’s Island was only intended to run 13 episodes (the last two episodes were aired on the same night, sort of the reverse of some shows which run a two-hour pilot which is later split into two one-hours episodes in syndication). I never heard of any plans to try to do a secnmd season, no matter how it did in the ratings.
I also would have liked to have seen more of My own Worst Enemy and Journeyman. The latter started off slow but the last few shows, which of course aired after the decision had been made to pull the plug, picked up steam and made me want to see more.
My vote goes to Day Break which was a cop drama built on the “man keeps waking up on the same day” premise as the movie Groundhog Day. It had some pacing problems, but ABC yanked it out of the schedule then kept moving it around so it was never able to grow an audience. 13 episodes were produced, only 8 aired and the last 5 were put on abc.com for a limited time.
Sci-fi and fantasy premised shows really fare badly on commercial networks.
I was going to jump in with Chris Elliot’s Get a Life, but was astounded to see it actually ran to 35 episodes.
Cupid, the original. A well written comedy/drama starring the charismatic Jeremy Piven, and written by Rob Thomas, who would go on to do Veronica Mars. It was smart, funny, and well before it’s time. I’m still pissed about it getting the axe.
I came in to mention the Paper Chase, but then I counted the number of episodes listed on the DVD set in Netflix and there were 22, so never mind.
Keen Eddie. Fox pulled it after only a few episodes. Bravo aired the rest, but it still wasn’t picked up. (Sigh.) Thirteen perfect hours.