In Memoriam: Brujito’s Favorite Cancelled Shows of 2010

As 2010 draws to a close, it’s time to give one last longing glance at some of my favorite shows to get cancelled in the last year or so and to share why I’ve decided that might not be such a bad thing.  We lost a lot of good men out there this year.  They were brave soldiers with new and challenging ideas.  But they were unceremoniously discharged by networks whose ranks are already swollen with safe and predictable courtroom dramas, police procedurals, and reality programming.  It always hurts to lose these shows.  When I was 6, I loved a show called Misfits of Science that featured a young Courtney Cox.  I shook my tiny fists with rage when it was cancelled, but I never forgot it.  I think therein lies some of the bittersweet beauty of television loss.

Eliza Dushku, Fox's Dollhouse

Dollhouse (and to a lesser degree Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) came in like a lion with a combination of a Joss Whedon-sized fanbase and a tantalizingly rich backstory that could have provided years of compelling intrigue.  Unfortunately, both went out in a blur of schedule juggling, flaccid network support, and  episodes that failed to capitalize on the richness the shows’ premises.  Still, both shows delivered inventive sci-fi storylines without the suffocatingly nerdy dialogue that plagued Caprica, the campy mugging of Eureka, or the low production value of almost everything else on basic cable.

Party Down (and to a lesser degree Flight of the Conchords) reminded us that you could find smart comedy that wasn’t filtered through the theater-geek baggage of Tina Fey or the scatological cruelty of Seth MacFarlane.  These shows found a perfect blend of subtle, sarcastic characters (Martin Starr and Jemaine Clement) to complement blatant and hapless goofballs (Ken Marino and Kristen Schaal).  In between, there were enough micro and macro-plots to make you really care about these people.

And then there was AMC’s Rubicon.  That one hurt the most.  Here was a show that offered the inventive storytelling and fecund premise of Dollhouse and delivered it with the smart subtlety of Party Down.  Sure, its pacing was a little slow at times, but this almost seemed like a deliberate thumbing of the nose at a current crop of shows that have bastardized the genre.  Espionage is supposed to be mysterious and cerebral, not an orgy of yelling and explosions like 24, Human Target, or even Chuck.

Jessica Collins and James Badge Dale, AMC's Rubicon

As news of Rubicon‘s cancellation broke, I brooded.  Sure, it reaffirmed my belief that the American television viewer is generally pretty vapid and that programming aims toward the lowest common denominator.  But that wasn’t anything new.  It wasn’t just because I felt a personal connection for all the reasons listed above.  That cancellation bothered me most because in my opinion, Rubicon had a perfect season finale.  Without getting into any great detail, let’s just say that all the right storylines were brought to a neat and tidy close.  Other loose ends were left alluringly undone.  And the cliffhanger was juicy enough to stoke the flames for next year without making me want to uppercut the Vizio.

So I mourned these great shows that ended too soon, but then I came to a realization.  Nearly all great shows must end too soon or they will cease to be great.  The sad fact is that American TV shows stay on way too long.  A winning formula is too often bled dry.  The British version of The Office was only on for two seasons.  I’m no snobby Anglophile, but the American version has been on for seven seasons (!) and nobody seems to know where to go with it.  Maybe I don’t need to see Jim and Pam scoping out daycare centers.  Maybe they could have just gotten married under a waterfall and sailed off into the sunset.  As much as I will miss these cancelled shows, I also don’t want them to drag on forever just to see their plots meander aimlessly.

The other sad fact is that ending a show is rarely pleasant.  Even acclaimed series finales like Seinfeld and The Sopranos had their detractors.  Even when writers know the end is coming, they struggle.  So maybe a quick and unexpected death is the way to go.  Like the massive nocturnal aneurysm that leaves a handsome corpse, there is no lingering, no descent, and no long goodbyes.  There’s a reason that people still mention My So Called Life, Freaks and Geeks (Poptimal writer Alana D.’s pick as the best show of the 00′s), or Veronica Mars with the same reverence as Tupac Shakur, Len Bias, or Kurt Cobain.  They were young, full of promise, and tragically taken too soon.

Maybe it’s not such a bad thing when any of us lose our favorite shows.  So we lost the ability to see their once taut storylines become soft and bloated.  So what?  I saw it happen to Lost and it wasn’t pleasant.  Instead we got a season or two of greatness.  If they ended abruptly and there was no closure, that’s okay.  We don’t need to know what Bill Murray whispered to Scarlett Johansson at the end of Lost in Translation, because the beauty is not knowing.  The characters and plots in these shows can go anywhere we want, because the shows ended while we still cared.  They left us wanting more and that’s a rare and wonderful thing in entertainment.