List of television series canceled after one episode

In the competitive business of television, ratings are the primary determinant as to how much a station can earn in advertising revenue. As ratings are wholly determined by the television audience, it is financially unsound for a television station to invest millions of dollars into a show that might turn out to be a flop. Pilot episodes are the first episodes in a planned television series meant to gauge public interest in the show (ratings) and therefore determine how much potential the series has for making money. Some of these are successful, and go on to become well-known series. Others are canceled shortly after their first airing. Rarely, a show is canceled after (or during) their first airing, and never given a second airing; these rarities are the subject of this list.

Note that this list excludes backdoor pilots (pilots which are filmed in such a way that they can be aired either as a TV movie or as a regular episode of another series). This list is not exclusive to American series and contains a few examples of shows that, while successful in one country, were cancelled quickly elsewhere.

List of television shows canceled after one episode

Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos

1993 comedy series spun off from Australia's Funniest Home Video Show, hosted by Doug Mulray. This show was actually cancelled during its first episode. Nine Network owner Kerry Packer purportedly personally telephoned the station, telling them to "Get that shit off the air". After a commercial break, a re-run of a Cheers episode was aired instead. It is understood that Mr Packer was alerted to the content of the program by several of his personal friends.

Co-Ed Fever

1979 comedy that attempted to imitate the then successful National Lampoon's Animal House. The pilot was aired as a "special preview" of the then coming season, and the series was canceled in the interum between this airing and the actual date when the series was due to be aired.

Dot Comedy

2000 comedy show.

Heil Honey I'm Home!

1990 comedy show on British Satellite Broadcasting in which Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun have survived the war and are living in 1950s New York City next door to a Jewish couple. Not merely was the show cancelled after episode one, the rest of the series (which had already been taped) was not broadcast.

Lawless

1997 Action series starring Brian Bosworth as a private investigator.

The Oblongs

2001 comedy, and a somewhat special case, in that it aired a full season on The WB and is rerun on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim in the United States; but when shown on Australia's Channel Nine in 2003, the network pulled the episode mid-airing, thus arguably qualifying it for this list.

South of Sunset

1993 private detective show starring Glenn Frey. This was the first US-produced series to be cancelled after one episode since 1969.

Transformers: Zone

1990 Japanese anime that was cancelled after one episode, and the remainder of its story was published in a magazine.

Turn-On

1969 Comedy/variety show canceled for being a terrible derivative of Laugh-In.

The Will

2005 reality TV show.

Who's Your Daddy

2005 reality TV show featuring a contestant who was adopted trying to guess which of eight men is her biological father.

You're in the Picture

1961 game show starring Jackie Gleason; notable in part for Gleason going on the air the next week and saying of the show: "Honesty is the best policy. We had a show last week that laid the biggest bomb! I've seen bombs in my day, but this one made the H-bomb look like a two-inch salute." Technically the series wasn't cancelled, but rather Gleason renamed it The Jackie Gleason Show and it became a talk show.

Shows cancelled before airing a single episode

Even more rare than series cancelled after a single showing are series cancelled before a single episode is broadcast. Not counting pilot films, which do not always result in a series pick-up, there have been occasions in which a network has announced the debut of a new series only to cancel the series before broadcast.

One such example is Manchester Prep, a series based upon the film Cruel Intentions that was commissioned by the Fox network and advertised as a new series, but, perhaps due to its controversial subject matter involving teen sexuality, was cancelled before broadcast. The pilot episode of Manchester Prep was later partially refilmed to add nudity and adult subject matter, and released as the R-rated direct-to-video film, Cruel Intentions 2.

The BBC commissioned a cartoon series called Popetown in 2002 which consisted of comical misrepresentations of the Roman Catholic church. After a sustained campaign from senior Catholic theologians, the series was never broadcast on the grounds that it was not of sufficient quality. It is however scheduled for release on DVD in 2005. [1]

The ABC reality show Welcome to the Neighborhood was cancelled before it aired because of its subject matter that "risked fostering prejudice." A conservative white neighborhood has to choose their new neighbors from a group of families that are black, Hispanic and Asian; two gay white men who've adopted a black child; a couple covered in tattoos and piercings; a couple who met at the woman’s initiation as a witch and a poor white family.