Dont @ Me, But These 6 Shows Were Rightfully Canceled After 1 Season

They can’t all be winners

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There is nothing quite like the disappointment of getting super into a new show only for it to be canceled prematurely (ugh, The Boroughs, Wonder Man, Stumble). Meanwhile, shows that have no business getting renewed somehow weasel their way through (give me a break, All’s Fair).

But as much as I feel wronged when my new fave gets the chop, sometimes the network executives get it right and say ta-ta to a series that just isn’t that great (anyone else struggle to sit through The Abandons?). Though I’m an entertainment editor and watch TV for a living, I fully get that this can be subjective, so try to not to flood my inbox with furious emails about how the Cruel Intentions series was really the next Sopranos. That said, here are six recent shows that (IMHO) were rightfully canceled after one season.

• Where to watch: Netflix
• Audience rating: Rotten Tomatoes: 49% / IMDB: 6.4/10 stars

Talk about a show with potential: a Western starring Gillian Anderson and Lena Headey? With Yellowstone fever still going strong, you’d think this American Western about the matriarchs of two dueling families would be a slam dunk for Netflix. But there’s a reason the series has an abysmal Rotten Tomatoes rating and stalled out at number three on Netflix’s top ten list after debuting. I could barely make it through the first episode of this show, which felt like a rehashed version of the “my family hates your family and we’ve all got guns” story we’ve watched so many times. There was a time where I would’ve said I’d watch Anderson or Headey in anything, but I think The Abandons proved to be the one exception.

• Where to watch: NBC
• Audience rating: Rotten Tomatoes: 54% / IMDB: 5.8/10 stars

If you’re going to reboot an iconic show, you better get it right. Unfortunately, Suits: LA couldn’t quite fill the big shoes of its predecessor. Sure, OG cast members Gabriel Macht and Rick Hoffman showed up in the west coast version, but I don’t even think a Meghan Markle storyline could have saved this one. And I’m not alone. Star Stephen Amell spoke out after the spinoff’s cancelation, saying that the show “wasn’t good enough.” He even admitted that the show’s creator said during the editing process, “I don’t know if this is going to work.” When the star and the creator don’t even have faith in a show…oof.

• Where to watch: Netflix
• Audience rating: Rotten Tomatoes: 79% / IMDB: 7.7/10 stars

I’m sure I’ll face some resistance with this one, particularly considering the fairly favorable audience ratings, but The Residence was just not it for me—and I was not surprised to see that it wouldn’t be getting a second season. First of all, I love Uzo Aduba, and I love a murder mystery. But the tone of the show was all over the place, and I found it extremely difficult to root for our detective protagonist who took ‘quirky’ and ‘weird’ to entirely new heights. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the cancelation was largely based on two factors: slipping ratings and an extremely large budget. Tack on a very disappointing finale and far too much birdwatching, and I’m not at all sad to see this one call it quits.

• Where to watch: Prime Video
• Audience rating: Rotten Tomatoes: 81% / IMDB: 5.6/10 stars

In this show’s defense, audiences liked it a lot more than critics (who tore it apart). But in defense of the show’s haters, if you’re going to reboot an iconic film that starred Reese Witherspoon, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Selma Blair and Ryan Phillippe, you better do it really well. And, sadly, this version just wasn’t up to par. The series lacked the same spark and tension as its predecessor and will probably go down in history as another failed attempt at capturing the same magic as the original (like the dismal straight-to-video sequels Cruel Intentions 2 and Cruel Intentions 3).

• Where to watch: Hulu
• Audience rating: Rotten Tomatoes: 83% / IMDB: 7.0/10 stars

I normally love anything from the creative mind of Mindy Kaling, but after just five minutes of this series about work-obsessed 20-somethings, I knew it was not for me. I found the characters to be super annoying (to be fair, it could be the generational divide here) and the humor to be quite “meh.” That said, Not Suitable for Work did gain a bit of a following, garnering respectable audience and critical scores. Sadly (for fans, not for me), those scores weren’t enough to earn the show a season two.

• Where to watch: Netflix
• Audience rating: Rotten Tomatoes: 68% / IMDB: 7.0/10 stars

I had high hopes for this soapy Netflix series about a fishing family who turns to drug smuggling, particularly considering it came from Scream and Dawson’s Creek creator Kevin Williamson. Sadly, it was a miss for me, dawg. In her 2025 review, my colleague called it, “overly predictable,” and said, “it takes entirely too long to get to the point.” I similarly felt that other shows did the “normal people turning to a life of crime” thing much better, like Yellowstone and Ozark. What should have been soapy fun a la Dawson’s Creek just never materialized for this one, which failed to make it to a second season.