Gone too soon: ‘Dexter: Original Sin’ and other promising series cancelled after one season

Showtime’s prequel of Dexter — the influential serial killer drama from the late aughts — Dexter: Original Sin was recently cancelled after airing for just a single season.

Despite having been picked up for a second season back in April, the network unceremoniously revealed the closure of shop as they plan to move forward with the original show’s sequel, Dexter: Resurrection, which stars Michael C. Hall — the original actor who played serial killer Dexter Morgan when the story began in 2006.

While Original Sin premiered in December 2024 and concluded its first (and now, only) season in February this year, Resurrection has been airing since July 11 and is expected to conclude in September.

With the unfortunate cancellation looming high in TV audience’s minds at the moment, it should be noted that this is not the first — and perhaps, even last — time that a show has been given the axe after a brief, but promising, start.

Here are 5 other shows which suffered similar fate for a number of reasons:

Freaks and Geeks

Aired: 1999

Predating high school hits like Skins, Euphoria, Gossip Girl, and many others, by technically a century — NBC’s Freaks and Geeks dared to go inside the social struggles and rebellious underbelly of teen life, showcased through a big cast full of future stars — including names like Linda Cardellini, James Franco, Busy Phillips, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, among others.

Why it was cancelled: The first reason highlighted was the challenging slot of the show’s airtime — 8 p.m. on Saturday, when most of the show’s target audience was off enjoying their weekend.

This contributed to poor audience ratings, while the heavily commercialised time of the show’s broadcast also made viewing difficult and inconsistent for those who did decide to tune in.

Furthermore, the series fell apart when creative differences between writers and the network executives derailed its development, as they “put the pressure on to pursue more light, broadly appealing moments that would make it an easy show to market” while the creator and writers attempted to show their “lived realities”, per ScreenRant.

Eventually, Freaks and Geeks aired its final episode in October 2000 and the show which counted Judd Apatow and Paul Feig among its creative team breathed its last on the silver screen.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Trip

Aired: 2006

Marking a heavily buzzed about television return for Matthew Perry, this Aaron Sorkin creation was poised for the stars due to the pedigree attached to it alone — after The Social Network writer’s strong television presence at the time, Studio 60 on the Sunset Trip was never considered for failure.

However, fail it did when several key factors came together to create a bitter cocktail which fell terribly short of expectations.

Why it was cancelled: The show which was set “behind the scenes at an ailing late-night television sketch show” (per The Guardian) and followed a team of highly skilled writer and producer (played by Perry and Bradley Whitford respectively) who were tasked to restore their project’s glory, NBC cancelled Studio 60 despite a promising start due to the popularity of Sorkin’s earlier success, political drama The West Wing, concluding mere months before the new show aired.

That seems to be the unanimous verdict, as one actor from the series, Steven Weber confirmed, “Coming off of ‘The West Wing’, there were such high expectations for Aaron Sorkin. Not only as a creative producer/writer but as the now infamous personality.”

“There were also things that went wrong because there was not a lot of love for that show. There was network pressure,” he added.

The general consensus also states that the premiere of Tina Fey’s 30 Rock around the same time, which focused on a similar premise but in a decidedly comedic light, shifted the audience’s attention from the more dramatic tone of Studio 60, which seemed to take itself quite seriously as well.

Alas, it was not meant to be and Studio 60 on the Sunset Trip bid goodbye to television screens everywhere in June 2007.

Pan Am

Aired: 2011

The ABC series now best remembered for featuring a pre-fame Margot Robbie, Pan Am was set in the golden era of air travel, following four stewardesses who represented the titular American airlines.

It failed, however, to soar for the skies despite a very strong start and it would seem that the show mainly had its own shortcomings to blame.

Why it was cancelled: Pan Am was compared to Mad Men upon its debut due to the stylistic and thematic similarities between the two shows, which is why its cancellation due to “ratings panic” surprised everyone as the show was still in the initial stages of building on its promise.

Though the show earned 11 million viewers when it premiered, the ratings were dashed by half midway through.

“However, alongside the show’s dip in ratings, a sudden change in tone and departure from the storylines laid out throughout the first half of the season were the nails in Pan Am’s coffin,” Collider reported.

According to Margot Robbie herself, “After the fifth episode, you see this abrupt change in content. If they’re rehiring writers, it’s obviously not doing well. If they don’t pick up the back nine, it’s pretty certain that you won’t go for a Season Two.”

Hey, at least we can be certain a star was born thanks to not being stuck on network television, no matter how successful it can get.

Lovecraft Country

Aired: 2020

Based in the segregated America of the 1950s, HBO’s Lovecraft Country featured Jonathan Majors, Jurnee Smollett, and Courtney B. Vance in starring roles.

Despite earning rave reviews, no diminishing ratings, and bagging a significant amount of silverware, the show was cancelled for a much more sinister reason than believed at first.

Why it was cancelled: The show’s critically appreciative premiere in August 2020 was cut short of its promised deliverance due to strong allegations of a “toxic” and “hostile” work environment, according to James Andrew Miller’s oral history on the network, titled Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers.

While reasons like the show’s huge budget and the lack of a “compelling vision” for the second season were thrown around following the cancellation, Miller wrote that “neither was the real reason.”

“I had several sources within HBO and elsewhere — people who worked on the show and people who represented people on the show — who said the environment on the show was not a healthy one,” he continued.

While showrunner Misha Green, who was at the centre of these allegations, never expressed any public comments about them, Miller further noted in his book that “to have a Black showrunner — and a female Black showrunner — is not something that happens every day, and people were incredibly excited about that. So, again, the word I come back to is ‘sadness’ that it was not able to continue.”

Eventually, Lovecraft Country concluded its brief run before the potential of a diverse cast and production could be fully realised.

Firefly

Aired: 2002

Often considered one of the foremost “what could have been” moments in television history, Firefly’s cancellation at Fox did not exactly raise alarm bells at the time it happened.

Thanks to a cult following in the subsequent years, ensured by its release on DVD, the show’s legacy was somewhat restored while questions about its halt still loomed.

Why it was cancelled: Described as a Western set in space, it has been suggested that the show’s creators just did not have a clue how to market it — choosing to depend on the show’s creator, Joss Whedon’s popularity which stemmed from the success of his earlier production, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

While the network also slashed its promise due to inconsistent broadcast schedule as well as the major blunder of mixing up the sequential order of the show’s episode releases.

Moreover, the network even failed to release the full lineup of the episodes announced — only 11 of its 14 episodes were aired as a result.

Interestingly, the show was able to return in the form of a film, Serenity, which was released in 2005.

“‘Serenity’ did do a near-perfect job of wrapping up the story, but its two-hour runtime simply didn’t allow Whedon to grant all of the show’s amazing characters the sendoff they deserved,” per ScreenRant.

Furthermore, the show’s cancellation resulted in one of the first instances of an audience backlash which was eventually relayed to the producers through a letter.

Unfortunately however, even a major rallying of the fans behind the show was not enough to save Firefly from the clutches of its network’s axe.