It’s very disappointing when you hear about your favorite TV show getting the rug pulled from underneath them. Even more disappointing when that show was a rating and critical success! Even HBO Max subscribers dealt with a lot of canceled TV shows this year due to the Warner Bros./Discovery merger. To get a good idea of how many good shows left us too soon, we have some examples below of 2022’s canceled TV shows that earned high Rotten Tomatoes scores.
The Baby-Sitters Club
Tom’s Guide gave us some insight as to which TV shows got the boot that actually had a score of 90% or more on Rotten Tomatoes. The Baby-Sitters Club was a modern-day take on the best-selling book series of a group of middle-schoolers starting a babysitting business in Stoneybrook. Seasons 1 and 2 blew the critics away, and it actually received a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes! Reviews of Season 1 said they loved the mix of nostalgia with today’s issues facing teen girls away from social media chaos and drug use. Despite the Netflix series growing success, it got canceled after two seasons for failing to crack Nielsen’s Top 10 weekly streaming rankings and was only in Netflix’s Top 10 for just one week. It was a devastating blow to a show that Netflix subscribers and teens of today’s generation could have grown up with.
Better Things
It’s rare to find a good comedy-drama of a single mother raising her kids on her own. FX’s Better Things gave that to us with King of the Hill actress Pamela Adlon and Louis C.K. as the showrunners. Viewers got the chance to experience a range of emotions with its hilarious, yet realistic humor, providing a perfect feminist series that shows the strengths of working motherhood. This Peabody Award-winning series currently has a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, with our review calling it a frank and funny look at womanhood. Unfortunately, the show’s fifth season was its last, with it concluding in April. On the bright side, Adlon told Deadline that the show will be a wrap “for now.” Let’s cross our fingers that the show will find a way to resurface on another network if possible.
The Big Leap
Another gone-to-soon TV series that was blessed with a 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating was The Big Leap. With some big-named cast members like Coyote Ugly’s Piper Perabo and Felicity’s Scott Foley, this musical-comedy was about down-on-their-luck characters participating in a reality dance show competition with the potential of their lives drastically changing. This series may have made critics and audiences happy, but it followed the list of major TV shows canceled as announced in March due to being Netflix’s lowest-rated series in the 2020-2021 season.
The Expanse
A series being brought back to life twice can mean twice the hope... as well as twice the disappointments experienced by fans. That’s what happened to Syfy’s The Expanse, based on James S. A. Corey’s sci-fi book series about the brink of war between Earth and Mars in the future. When Alcon Entertainment first canceled the series after three seasons, fans were outraged and trying to save the show with over 10,000 signatures for an online petition. Luckily, the 94% rated series was saved from cancellation by Amazon, and it went on for another three seasons. But the future of The Expanse was apparent when its final season received a six-episode run. While it’s been officially said that the sixth season is the show’s last, the series' author saw this decision as more of a “pause.” I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Gentefied
Superstore’s America Ferrera headlined a Netflix series in February 2020 that achieved high critical ratings, but only survived two seasons. The comedy-drama Gentefied was about three Mexican-American cousins holding out for the American Dream. It dealt with heavy themes of familial separation, border laws and gentrification. It doesn’t seem to make sense why this ground-breaking show that earned a 92% in its first season and a 100% in its second season would get the pull from Netflix. Maybe it had issues finding its audience. No matter what the reason is, audiences can still feel grateful they have two seasons of this impactful show to watch with their Netflix subscription.
Made for Love
While other shows this year that got the axe could still be seen on their respective subscriptions, Made for Love is an example of a show that wasn’t only axed, but buried. The sci-fi black-comedy book adaptation series was about a woman who escapes a decade-long marriage from her tech billionaire husband, only to discover he planted a chip in her brain to watch her every move. It has a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics loving the performances from Cristin Milioti and Ray Romano. Because of the Warner Bros./Discovery merger, not only was Made for Love canceled, but removed from HBO Max this month. This should make audiences who saw this short-lived show grateful they got the chance to see it when they did.
Raising Dion
A great superhero show not based on a Marvel or DC Comic was Raising Dion. This Netflix series that earned 91% on Rotten Tomatoes was about a 10-year-old boy who gained superhuman abilities like teleportation and radiating energy. Michael B. Jordan served as the show’s executive producer and starred as the main character’s deceased father. Just when you think this Netflix 10 Top Ten series had the potential for more, the two-season-long show got canceled in April.
When highly-rated television shows like these experience cancellation, it makes you not want to get attached to any new series at all. And yet, we know we just can’t help it. It’s a good lesson to enjoy a series while it's playing and just cross your fingers that it can face the possibility of being revived or renewed. Be sure to check out our 2023 TV premiere dates schedule so you can find another show to fill in the void of what was lost.
