You are following a program where the plots revolve around a large mystery or two, and the damn thing gets canceled before the big reveal. For me, it was Nowhere Man, which was on UPN for one season. The intro was “My name is Thomas Veil, or at least it was. I’m a photographer, I had it all: a wife, Alyson, friends, a career. And in one moment, it was all taken away, all because of a single photograph. I have it; they want it; and they will do anything to get the negative. I’m keeping this diary as proof that these events are real. I know they are… They… have to be.”
Just as they were about to reveal what the big secret was, they canceled the show.
So, which cancellation drove you up the wall for this reason?
I liked Brimstone, because to me it seemed clear the Satan was going to try to doublecross our protagonist, but it always seemed like our hero had something up his sleeve.
I think the worst one that I’ve personally experienced was the season finale of John Doe, which I’ll post in a spoiler since it was such a huge shock:
The big bad guy turns around just as John Doe has failed to catch him… and is revealed to (apparently) be his best friend. Was it really Digger? We’ll never know.
Pepper Mill disliked the cancellation of Alien Nation, which stopped right at a cliffhanger.
Of course, there were plenty of fans, so they resolved the cliffhanger in a comic book and a series of TV movies.
I didn’t care so much myself – I’d given up on the show much earlier, when I thought they’d squandered the premise.
I made a thread similar to this last year, to complain about My Name Is Earl, which was canceled on a cliffhanger. The mystery left unrelsolved was
Earl had DNA testing performed to discover the real identity of Dodge’s father. He discovered that he, in fact, was Dodge’s dad. He also discovered that Darnell may not be Earl, Jr’s father.
Oh man - my faulty memory told me for years that Nowhere Man was a tidy story arc that happened to wrap up in one season and a quick check has reminded me that they never did tie it all up. DAMMIT.
Also, I was always curious about the backstory of the character Book from Firefly.
Recently, I thought The Sarah Connor Chronicles had one of the best cliffhangers I’d seen. Then, the show was cancelled and we’ll never know what happened. Basically, John Connor was sent to the future, skipping over the years where he becomes the leader of the resistance. It ended with John meeting his uncle in the future and his uncle has no idea who he is.
How does John Connor get back to 2008? We’ll never know…
Another shout out for Nowhere Man. Gah, that one really pissed me off. I still remember the name of that damn photo: The Hidden Agenda.
Also, Invasion. It was a decent scifi drama, but the cliffhanger they left it on kinda torqued my panties:
If I remember correctly, I think pregnant Larkin got shot, and the only way to save her life was to carry her into the water, where of course, she’d become a pod-person. Thereby undermining all the work her boyfriend Russell went into protecting her over the whole season.
But what really chapped my ass recently was the cancellation of Kings. Awesome show, great drama, nice biblical paralells and symbolism, and Ian Fucking McShane. I’m still fumming.
I watched a few episodes of this on DVD but got bored with it. I take your point but was wondering if you knew the DVD set is out there. Since I didn’t finish it I don’t know if the big secret reveal is on the DVD’s or not.
