Why do so many US series get cancelled and leave us dangling?

[NoMarymary]

Where has Once Upon A Time Gone?
Thirteenth floor cancelled.
Dracula cancelled
Penny dreadful cancelled.
Fast forward (which was a brilliant idea and well acted)

I am sure there are tons more. I now rarely bother with US series!

I think they are so keyed into making money they stretch out a good idea forever in case it's a hit and when it's not as popular as it should be they cancel. Much better idea to compress the idea into a brief series (note Sherlock) rather the this TV teasing.

Samantha who?

Loved Emily Owens M.D. Cancelled after 13 episodes just as she got together with the hot resident.

Thought brothers and sisters ended at the right time and tidied the ends up

Thanks that was it! Bit silly/switch off type programme

Jericho too.

Yy to the event and flash forward! So annoying to have really gotten into them, huge cliffhanger ending of series then... Nothing

Yes tuckingfits my so called life!

Southlands! Oh why...I bloody love a cop drama.

And yes BBC survivors. Would have liked to know the conclusion.

Big fat yes to Southland! Best cop show for years (& zero irritating female cops, rare).

Hope Hell on Wheels runs for a while, really getting into it.

The 4400 was amazing, was so disappointed that they canned it

There are a few problems:

If a show is popular, people demand a second season. To pre-empt this, shows now aren't usually designed to have closure at the end of the season but leave the option for a second. If this continues, the show eventually fizzles out without a proper ending. If it does have a proper ending, half of the viewers complain that it wasn't the ending they hoped for and that any questions they had weren't answered.

If the show is unpopular, it doesn't even reach the second season.

Because people now anticipate a show getting cancelled early, they wait until it gets going before binge watching to catch up, but this means ratings early on are low and it gets cancelled.

Anthology series such as American Horror Story and True Detective are the in-thing now as they offer the best of both worlds: closure at the end of the season, but a built in audience for start of the next one.

Southland

My absolute most favourite thing on telly EVER.

In 1998 there was a tv series called Brimstone about a cop who came back from the dead to hunt down escaped demons. It was great but I don't think it evemn got a full series. Gah.

See also American Gothic. That's when US TV seemed to start with these shenanigans.

As far as Britain goes I was PO when Ripper Street went too especially as it seems to have an affinity with something like Peaky Blinders. If it wasn't for the different time periods you could have had crossovers. Or maybe you could have had with the previous generation of Shelbys. Anyway. Gah.

Southland was brilliant, the ending was

Subhuman. Thanks I have True Detective on my planner and I sneaked a look at the last episode preview and it does seem to wrap up that episode so to me that is playing fair to the audience and the channel.

Can start watching now

Sister. RIPPER STREET IS BACK! By popular demand.

Everybody hates Chris
My name is earl
Jericho
Witches of east end

Breakout kings
The Dresden files

Nurse Jackie

I've literally just finished Southland.

What an ending

I can't believe they left it like that

But nice to find people who've actually seen it, I don't know anyone else who has. So no one to share the past two weeks I've been mainlining it and developing a massive crush on Sammy

Sammy is all mine clear off.
The only other people I know who watched it was my Mum and Dad!

I can't imagine my mum and dad watching that!

I can't believe what they did with Ben. I never expected the character to go in that direction.

The thing about Southland was how many episodes I had a physically reaction to - Nate's murder, Sammy coming home and thinking the baby was missing, let alone the kidnapping - I had stomach ache after that episode, I was so tense watching it. Horrific but amazing.

Plus Sammy rarely wearing all his clothes...

My mums all time favourite programme is Dexter

I'm not a big TV watcher and was naive to this phenomenon until I watched kyle xy.

Was really getting into it, big build up lots of promise then... Nothing.

Nurse Jackie didn't finish. There will be a 7th Season in 2015, thankfully

That'll be the last series.

I'm clearly the only person who watched Gravity ( I think!), a series about people living on a spaceship. It was terrible and kept being moved later and later into the night before being cancelled mid series, but there were loads of mysteries that were never resolved. Its driven me mad since.

God Dexter needed to end a season or two ago, and him just to be caught!

Glad to see more people liked 'Dead Like Me'- they made a really terrible film after the second series- Mandy Patinkin wasn't in it, and it was pretty embarrassing to watch. The series reminds me of when dh and I first met.

And I recently watched 'Bunheads' (by the people who did the Gilmore Girls) and yes, it was sappy rubbish, but I liked it and now there is no more.