Four TV Shows That I'm (Still) Royally Pissed Got Canceled

1. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Dear Thomas Dekker, thanks for being less of a whiny bastard than Edward Furlong.

To this day, when I see someone who was on this wonderfully well done continuation of the Terminator franchise (set in an alternate universe where the events of the third and fourth movies didn't happen). Often, I end up pleading at the television set, "You're supposed to be on Sarah Connor Chronicles!" And then I get depressed. And then I get angry at Fox for pulling the rug out for what was a truly wonderful example of science-fiction on TV.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles wasn't just good for the Terminator franchise, it was just plain good. The show had solid writing, great acting (especially from Summer Glau as Cameron, the terminator sent to protect John) and surprisingly good special effects for a television show. It didn't pull punches and make sure your favorite characters survived every episode. A couple of my favorites got taken out with little ceremony. There was one particular "Bang, you're dead" moment toward the end of the second season that was particularly shocking. If you enjoyed the Terminator movies but didn't watch the show, you ought to check it out.
Be warned, though, a huge part of my ire is that the show's producers decided to take a risk by ending the second season with a huge cliffhanger. I repeat: a huge cliffhanger. And how did Fox respond? Oh, yes, they canceled it. Bastards.
On the bright side, the show's stars and producers have apparently been trying for the last year to get Warner Brothers to let them make a direct-to-DVD movie that would wrap-up the loose ends of the series. Though there hasn't been much in the way of developments in that regard. Sad face.

2. Firefly

Oh, come on, like you didn't see this coming. I'm sure this is on everybody's lists of "Got Canceled too soon." I actually never watched Firefly while it was on the air. Before last summer, I'd seen a couple episodes in reruns on The Channel Formerly Known as Sci-Fi and I saw Serenity when it hit theaters and enjoyed it. I probably would have liked it better had I been more familiar with the show.
How did it get canceled? Seriously, it was essentially a western set in space with extremely memorable and likable characters. The cast was top notch, with awesome actors like Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin, Alan Tudyk and the aforementioned Summer Glau (who sadly is pulling double-duty on this list).

I'm actually going as Jayne for Halloween. True story. I just wish I had the hat. You know the one I'm talking about.

Unfortunately, Firefly suffered from a bad case of the common Fox-Is-A-Bunch-Of-Idiots. The network said the original pilot wasn't action packed enough and was essentially "too smart" and it showed the crew as being a little morally dubious for dealing with a villain like Niska (played with a large amount of creepyness by Michael Fiarman) to hook people in. So Joss Whedon wrote and filmed "The Train Job." While it was the third episode in the series chronologically, it was aired first. It's a great episode, but it left people somewhat confused because they weren't introduced to the characters properly. Then, to add insult to injury, Fox aired the whole series out of order. And they showed it on Fridays - a night that nobody wants. Small wonder it didn't make it past 14 episodes.
On the bright side, we did get a very fun movie, Serenity, that served as a sequel to the series and allowed us to get some closure to some of the story arcs of the series. However, hardly anybody went to see it and Universal lost a bunch of money on it, so we've probably seen the last of Captain Malcolm Reynolds and the rest of the crew (that survived the movie).

3. Star Trek: Enterprise

Ah, the often-maligned Enterprise. I grew up on Star Trek, and Paramount was eager to keep producing more when Voyager came to a close. What came next was Enterprise, a prequel that precedes the original Star Trek by a little over 100 years. Starring Dr. Sam Beckett himself, Scott Bakula, as Captain Jonathan Archer, the series got off to a rocky start. But anybody who's familiar with the various spin-offs of the Star Trek franchise knows that all of the spin-offs generally didn't hit their strides until the third season (though I still contend that Deep Space 9 was very good even in its first season). Combine that with the fact that thousands of infantile Trekkies who thought that Enterprise violated their sacred canon who boycotted the show out of principal, and that led to less than stellar ratings. But then, Enterprise was on UPN, which was never a ratings powerhouse (and shortly after the cancellation of Enterprise, it merged with the WB Network to become The CW - a terrible name for a TV channel, if you ask me).

There's a whole lot of swagger on that bridge. But we all know we're looking at the Vulcan. The sexy, sexy Vulcan.

Enterprise is the longest running of all the shows on this list, with a whole 98 episodes under its belt. It definitely did not start strong like Sarah Connor or Firefly. But as the show progressed, the writing and characterization got stronger and stronger. The second season saw some really strong episodes, and then the producers took a risk with the third season. Instead of an episodic story structure, the show launched a season-long arc in which the crew had to go into an explored sector of space to pursue an group of aliens responsible for a Sept. 11th-like attack on Earth. This got into some dark, Deep Space 9 like story-telling involving torture and other morally dubious actions taken by Captain Archer. The fourth season was one of the best seasons of Star Trek ever, but most people stopped watching the show in the first or second season. Even with a new producer and new two to three episode arcs that bridged gaps and explained many mysteries of the Star Trek canon (like why Klingons in the original series didn't have ridges on their head), the show just didn't have the ratings to survive. So, for the first time since the original series, a Star Trek show got canceled. This cancellation, combined with the poor performance of Star Trek: Nemesis, the last outing for the Next Generation crew, did lead to the JJ Abrams reboot that came out in 2009.
But, with Enterprise canceled in 2005, I found myself without new Star Trek to look forward to every season for first time in my life. Le sigh.

4. Dollhouse

I didn't even watch Dollhouse, save for the pilot episode which left me feeling it was a little lackluster. So why should I be pissed that it got canceled? Well, take a look back at the first entry, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Dollhouse premiered while Sarah Connor was in it's second (and final) season. Dollhouse consistently got lower ratings than Sarah Connor and less critical praise. However, when it came time to renew for the next season, Fox decided to go with Dollhouse, because Fox's own studios produced Dollhouse, whereas Sarah Connor was produced by Warner Brothers and sold to Fox to air on their network. Apparently, it was more cost effective to keep making Dollhouse than to keep paying Warner Bros. for the rights to air the episodes. Plus, Fox would make money off DVD sales of Dollhouse while Warner Bros. got the DVD sales for Sarah Connor.
So, Sarah Connor didn't get a third season, while Dollhouse got a second season. And what happened at the end of its second season? Oh. Yeah. It got canceled. Way to go Fox. Morons. Notice a trend in who canceled these shows?

I'm so bitter at you, Dollhouse, that all you get is a caption without a picture.

I might give Dollhouse another shot, since it was created by Joss Whedon, the man behind Firefly (and who will direct The Avengers due out in 2012). But for now, I'm content with being bitter, thanks very much.