The history of TV is littered with great sci-fi shows that found passionate fan bases only to be cut short for one reason or another. Some of these shows got conclusions in the form of movies, some were banished to the darkest corners of the streaming world, and some still have fans out there fighting to bring them back.
Sci-fi shows can be expensive to make and appeal to a niche audience, so it makes sense that not everyone makes it to the finish line. But it still hurts when this happens, because the fans who love this kind of thing love it with all their hearts.
Firefly
Watch Firefly on Hulu
Let’s start with one of the earliest modern examples of this nonsense: in 2002, Fox aired Firefly, a sci-fi/western mashup about a lovable cast of characters going from planet to planet on a rickety spaceship looking for work. Fans quickly warmed to the show, but Fox aired episodes carelessly out of order, momentum failed to develop, and Firefly was canceled after one season.
This was in the early days of the internet, where fans came together and demanded that Fox reverse its decision. Home video sales exploded, and while Firefly never got a proper second season, we did get a movie called Serenity that basically wrapped up the story, although it had to drop some major threads from the show.
The story of Firefly kind of has a happy ending, although we were robbed of what could have been an epic slow roll of a tale that would have taken years to properly tell.
The Orville
Watch The Orville on Hulu
This wound is much more recent. The Orville follows the crew aboard the titular spaceship as they explore the outer reaches of the galaxy. The Orville started as a loving parody of Star Trek but embraced its dramatic side as it continued. When Fox canceled the show (they love doing that) after two seasons, The Orville returned for a third on Hulu, where it got a bigger budget and longer episodes. Some fans think this emotional, action-packed season is better than anything the actual Star Trek universe has produced in years.
Naturally, that’s where we leave things. The third season, which premiered in 2022, ended with some plotlines wrapped up, while others remained dangling. It’s clear there was more planned, and some cast members still hint that more episodes are forthcoming. But the more time that passes, the less likely that seems. The Orville changed a lot as it went on, which makes you wonder how it would have kept changing had it continued.
The Expanse
Watch The Expanse on Amazon Prime Video
Based on the book series by James S.A. Corey, The Expanse has been described as “Game of Thrones in space.” We follow a crew caught in the middle of warring factions from Earth, Mars, and the asteroid belt. The interplanetary politics are at least as important as the sci-fi elements, which include an alien virus called the Protomolecule and giant ring gates that zap our heroes across the ruins of a once-mighty extraterrestrial empire. Detailed and carefully plotted, The Expanse is among the rare sci-fi movies and shows that tries to get the science more or less right.
The Expanse ran for three seasons on SyFy and then another three on Amazon Prime Video, so it had a good, long life. But there are still three Expanse books it didn’t get to adapt. The dream is for someone else to pick the show up and make three more seasons, and then we’ll have the entire tale.
Raised by Wolves
Watch Raised by Wolves on Tubi
I don’t take meds, but whenever I describe Raised by Wolves, I feel like I’m off them. The show is about a pair of androids—Mother and Father—who raise a group of human children on a distant planet after Earth is destroyed by a religious war. Other players include the violent, mermaid-like native inhabitants of the planet and a giant flying snake that is also Mother’s child. Trying to keep up with the mythology and religious symbolism can make you feel like your brain is melting, which makes Raised by Wolves part of a proud sci-fi tradition.
With a premise this weird, it’s kind of a miracle that Raised by Wolves lasted for two seasons, but that’s also its charm: there’s nothing else quite like it out there, and I commend HBO Max for taking a chance on the series at all.
I’m less enthusiastic about them completely removing the show from HBO Max. If you want to watch it now, you’ll have to buy the physical release or watch episodes with ads when they happen to run on services like Tubi.
Farscape
Watch Farscape on Tubi
Farscape follows an astronaut, John Crichton, who is sucked through a wormhole and finds himself traveling aboard a living spaceship populated by diverse alien life. The show had a dense mythology, a deep bench of characters, and puppets. Obviously, people fell in love with it.
Farscape was going to end with a fifth season, but the Sci-Fi Channel canceled it before it got the chance. After a fan campaign similar to the one that saved Firefly, the show formally concluded with a three-hour miniseries called Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars. That’s not quite the same as a whole final season, but it’s as close as any of these shows got to a proper ending.
Westworld
Watch Westworld on Tubi
Westworld is a bizarre case. It was a monster hit when it debuted on HBO in 2016; the story about a theme park full of advanced robots that eventually rebel against their human creators was gripping. But subsequent seasons were more ponderous and meandering, and the show slowly shed fans. HBO canceled Westworld after season 4, which ended on a cliffhanger that set up one final go-round. Then, as with Raised by Wolves, the series was removed from streaming on HBO Max, so you have to dig to find it.
And yet Westworld is finding new life on platforms like iTunes, where Collider reportsa surge of interest. The show was canceled in 2022, just one year before generative AI broke into the mainstream and got everyone worried about robots replacing humans. That would have been the perfect time to promote a show like Westworld, but it was too ahead of the curve.
What will get canceled next?
New sci-fi shows are still coming out, including at least one we’re deliriously excited about, but they come with a risk: will you watch it and get invested only for the series to get canceled partway through? We’re always keeping our fingers crossed.
Release Date
2016 – 2022
Network
HBO
Showrunner
Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy
Evan Rachel Wood
Dolores Abernathy
Thandiwe Newton
Maeve Millay
Jeffrey Wright
Bernard Lowe
Tessa Thompson
Charlotte Hale
