Every TV fan knows the pain of a too-early cancellation. It’s heartbreaking to know that characters we’ve come to know and love will never get the closure they deserve, or that we’ll never truly get to experience the full scope of the writers’ vision.
This goes double for sci-fi shows, which so often rely on mystery-box structures to keep viewers hooked. After all those weeks — or sometimes even years — of speculating, bouncing theories off friends, or discussing the show online, a disappointing finale can feel like a betrayal. But even a controversial finale is better than no real finale at all.
Unfortunately, the sci-fi TV shows in this list all fall into the latter category. But while fans will never have all the answers they want, that doesn’t make the shows’ twists any less mind-bending, or their questions any less captivating. If you can handle the frustration of an unresolved mystery, these five titles are worth a watch.
FlashForward
Originally marketed as a replacement for “Lost,” which was set to air its aforementioned finale the following year, the 2009 ABC series had massive, mysterious shoes to fill — and boy, did it pack in the mysteries. Starring “Lost” alums like Sonya Walger and Dominic Monaghan alongside other familiar faces in John Cho, Joseph Fiennes, and Courtney B. Vance, the show explored the fallout of a mysterious global event that caused the entire world to lose consciousness for exactly 137 seconds. During the blackout, people experienced visions — the titular flashes forward — of their lives six months in the future.
No one knew what caused the event, of course, but the unanswered questions just kept piling up. Over the course of its single season, the show introduced a quantum entanglement device that made its wearer immune to the flash forward, an enigmatic master physicist with multiple aliases, and much, much more. It even tacked on a whole new blackout in its Season 1 finale, which also left the fate of one major character up in the air. Unfortunately, fans weren’t able to flash months into the future to see how it all ended themselves, as ABC announced the show’s cancellation a few weeks before its finale aired.
Another member of the post-“Lost” sci-fi boom, “V” opened with a bold query. “Where were you when JFK was assassinated? Where were you on 9/11? Where were you this morning?” a series of text overlays read in the first few seconds of the 2009 ABC pilot. The show, a reimagining of the 1983 series of the same name, had lofty aspirations — literally. Like many of the best alien shows on TV, much of “V” took place in a mothership well above the Earth, where a race of reptilian extraterrestrials led by Anna (Morena Baccarin) plotted the planet’s demise.
Earthling viewers never found out if they succeeded, as ABC canceled “V” after two seasons. The finale ended on just about the biggest cliffhanger an alien series could: The Visitors, as the show deemed its ETs, managed to subjugate nearly the entire human race with their mind-control powers, a host of new motherships descended on the Earth, and a clandestine, powerful resistance force, which had apparently been operating in secret for the entire run of the show, was revealed. And then it all just… ended, marking one of the bleaker cliffhangers in sci-fi history.
The OA
Ask people what they consider to be Netflix’s dumbest cancellation ever, and a significant number of them will say “The OA.” The beloved 2016 series began when a formerly blind woman named Prairie Johnson (played by Brit Marling, doing double duty as the show’s co-creator and star) reappeared after a seven-year absence, with her vision mysteriously restored. The ambitious show only got more mind-bending from there, as Prairie — aka the Original Angel, aka the OA — recruited a team, including characters played by Phyllis Smith, Ian Alexander, and Patrick Gibson, to help her travel between parallel universes by performing an interpretive dance. (Yes, really.)
The Season 2 finale, which would ultimately become the series finale, introduced the show’s most meta twist yet. In a final reality shift, the OA and co. appeared to travel to our dimension, landing on the set of a TV series that looked suspiciously like Netflix’s “The OA.” Tantalizing! Sadly, this major rug-pulling moment will likely never be resolved, though fans have been petitioning for Netflix to revive the show ever since its cancellation in 2019.
Another Netflix cancellation victim, “1899” only lasted one season. But creators Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar — the same minds behind “Dark,” one of Netflix’s best sci-fi shows ever — knew how to amp up the show’s increasingly enigmatic lore in the short time they were given.
“1899” followed a group of immigrants as they journeyed from Europe to the United States on a mysterious steamship. As should be unsurprising to anyone reading this list, there was a lot more to both the ship and its passengers than initially met the eye. Still, it’s hard to imagine that even the most dedicated sci-fi aficionados could have predicted the season’s shocking conclusion, which booted the whole affair out of its nautical Victorian setting and straight into the cosmos. But was the show’s final spaceship setting a simulation? The answer likely would have been even more complicated than that, as Friese and Odar initially planned for “1899” to conclude after a three-season arc.
Raised by Wolves
“Raised by Wolves,” the Ridley Scott-produced epic about two androids trying to reboot humanity on a distant planet, is one of the most underrated sci-fi shows of all time. Unfortunately, it also left so many plot threads dangling upon its 2022 cancellation that it’s almost impossible to keep track of them all. There’s a disembodied voice pushing characters’ actions, a woman turns into a tree, and a human-shaped android gives birth to a snake. The list goes on.
Still, there’s a glimmer of hope for anyone dying to know how the whole saga resolves. They may just have to be patient. “Hopefully we’ll get a chance to do the whole thing. But if we don’t, I’ll figure out how to get it out there some other way,” series creator Aaron Guzikowski told Decider before the axing was announced. “I’ll draw it and it’ll take me like 30 years.” Set your timers now, “Raised by Wolves” fans.
