10 Canceled Shows Fans Still Want Saved: ‘Shadow & Bone,’ ‘Mindhunter’ & More
If you could wave a wand (or, perhaps, a magical television remote) and bring back one TV show, which would you bring back?
Considering how many shows are taken off air before we’re ready to say goodbye, we imagine it’d be difficult to pick just one.
But fans have made their preferences known with web searches, online polls, comment sections, and social media threads, and here are 10 shows that reigned supreme.
Shadow and Bone
When researchers for the casino comparison website InstantCasinos compared search interest for more than 200 shows, Shadow and Bone was the one fans most wanted back.
Based on a novel of the same name by Leigh Bardugo, the two-season Netflix series starred Jessie Mei Li as a mapmaker with the power to change the fate of her war-torn world.
Mindhunter
In a 2024 Reddit thread about canceled TV shows fans want to return, Mindhunter came in first place in upvotes, with one commenter saying it “ended without conclusion and was such a good show.”
Overseen by David Fincher, the two-season Netflix series turned a non-fiction by FBI agent John E. Douglas into a psychological thriller in which feds use behavioral science to catch serial killers.
GLOW
Commenters upvoted GLOW above all others in another 202 Reddit thread on the same topic, with commenters grieving for the fourth and final season that had begun filming when Netflix reversed its renewal.
The 1980s-set comedy-drama starred Betty Gilpin, Alison Brie, and others as fictional members of the real-life Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling organization.
Santa Clarita Diet
In a 2023 BuzzFeed post about recently-canceled TV shows, the top commenter gave a throaty endorsement to Santa Clarita Diet, saying they “really enjoyed the chemistry among the whole cast.”
The three-season Netflix series featured Drew Barrymore as a suburban California real estate agent who starts transforming into a zombie, putting her family in a bloody bind.
Sliders
The most-upvoted answer in a 2011 Quora thread about TV shows needing revivals put the spotlight on Sliders, which the user said was a “high-concept, smartly-written sci-fi show” with an “excellent” premise.
For five seasons across Fox and what was then the Sci-Fi Channel, Jerry O’Connell and other cast members played travelers sliding between parallel dimensions in efforts to get home.
Station 19
More than 135,000 users put Station 19 at the top of a 2024 JustJared poll about canceled network TV shows that deserve another season, giving that show a slight edge over Magnum P.I. and its 130,000 votes.
A fire department-based Grey’s Anatomy spinoff — which boasted Jason George’s surgeon-turned-firefighter-turned-surgeon character — the show lasted seven seasons before ABCextinguished it.
Firefly
In a 2019Quora thread regarding TV shows users would want revived, the top-voted answer had a definitive pick. “Firefly all day long,” that user wrote. “Absolute travesty this show was cancelled.”
With a cast including Adam Baldwin, Alan Tudyk, Nathan Fillion, and Gina Torres and the Fox series lasted one season — which tracked the crew of a spaceship-for-hire in a hostile galaxy — but later got a big-screen continuation.
Forever
It was a landslide in 2015 when Entertainment Weekly asked readers to vote for the recently-axed series they’d miss the most in 2015 — nearly half of the votes went to Forever.
The one-season ABC show starred Ioan Gruffudd as a medical examiner who solves crimes while trying to solve the mystery of his own immortality.
The OA
After the aforementioned Firefly and Santa Clarita Diet, the next top-voted comment in a 2020 Reddit thread on the topic praised The OA and its second season in particular, which one user said they missed “the second it ended.”
The genre-melding drama followed Brit Marling’s character as she returns from a years-long disappearance with a newfound sense of vision, with some considering her a miracle and others considering her a threat.
Prodigal Son
When a 2021 TV Insider poll asked fans to save one recently-canceled show a few years ago, Prodigal Son got nearly 2 out of every 5 votes, giving that show a win by a wide margin.
Lasting two seasons on Fox, the crime drama starred Tom Payne as an FBI profiler working with the NYPD and Michael Sheen as his father, a serial killer known as “The Surgeon.”
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