Almost Human aka Law and Order 2050. Karl Urban was the emotionless human cop. Michael Ely was his hyper empathetic robot activist partner. Stories about smart houses killing intruders, smart bullets that use your website history to track you through the city, the rights of clones, sex robots with human skin. This show was GREAT!
No, it really wasn't. It was yet another poorly thought out sci-fi show made by a bunch of REALLY bad storytellers. When one of your main characters is such an annoying little brat that your audience is rooting for the dirt snorkelling aliens to eat him & poo the remains out so there's no chance of him coming back . . . You know that there are major issues with the show!
Brisco County Jr. was great - plus it had Sam Axe in in it, who was undeniably the best character in Burn Notice and just a fantastic easy to love actor. It always reminded me of The Wild Wild West, which also had a flair for science fiction nuances.
Thanks for including "Defying Gravity", I loved it and still mourn after it. It had a brilliant premise. "Space Above and Beyond" was another gem. I agree with most of your list. Also "Limitless" and "Jericho" had potential, IMHO.
Great list. I would also mentions "Invasion," a 1997 ABC TV series which told the story of the aftermath of a hurricane in which water-based creatures infiltrate a small Florida town and begin to take over the bodies of the town's inhabitants. It was a sort of so=low burn "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and had a creepy, paranoid air.
Surface was a tragic loss. It was just getting good. Of course You really should have mentioned Threshold. One season and cut off in it's prime. Had BIG names like Carla Gugino, Peter Dinklage, Catherine Bell, Brent Spiner, Charles Dutton and many others. GREAT show that never got any follow through.
I watched Defying Gravity when it aired and loved it. I also bought the DVD's and still have them. I also loved Journey Man. I wish both of these shows had not been canceled so early. Terra Nova was another good show that only lasted one season and should have kept going.
Absolutely agree, it was so intricate in its story and weaving of elements. I loved it, so sad that it didn't continue but glad it got a mention here as it seems to have gone relatively unknown.
@@MrGrumblier - I was actually fine with the changes. Reducing the "flashforward" time to 6 months instead of 21 years really raised the stakes for the characters; smart move for a TV show.
@@cosmicphoto05 That part I agree with since it is hard to do a TV show that spans 21 years, on the other hand, 6 months seemed a little too short, almost like they knew they'd only get one season.
One rarely mentioned, but had huge missed potential was the BBC's ambitious 'Outcasts.' A fairly slow burn that centred mainly on the interpersonal relationships, but then dropped a massive cliffhanger ending at the end of the season.
Yes! Outcasts. Great slow burn show. Such a cliffhanger. A serious sci fi show. I was headed to the comments to mention it. Maybe one day someone will tell us what the plan for the show was.
I loved Space Above and Beyond when it aired. But I was young and easily impressed at the time. A few years ago, I saw it on DVD and fairly cheap, so I bought it and watched it again. To be honest, it was pretty rough rewatching it years later. To be fair, a few episodes where really good. Mostly, the ones near the end of the series where they got serious about setting up the ongoing story arcs. But a lot of the episodes where hokey and lame. Based on the last few episodes, I think the show had serious potential, but unfortunately, by the time it really got going, most people had already tuned out. I remember hearing about how it actually debuted with really good ratings, but viewership quickly collapsed. And when I rewatched it, I can understand why. But it's unfortunate, because it's clear they had some good ideas.
Ascension was great - although the "ending" felt like they'd skipped a whole season to get to it. Debris, however.... some great ideas, but talk about "treading water" - until the baffling final episode, when I just shrugged...
Always loved the space fighters, in Space above and beyond. You enter the cockpit then it decends down one level to conect with the rest of the ship. You see stuff like that as a kid you go upstairs tip all you lego on your bedroom floor and build your own.
The Dresden Files TV series was interesting, but the Dresden Files *book series* are a hundred times better. And there are audiobooks available of the series, read by James Marsters ("Spike" from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) - these are phenomenal (once you get past that James didn't know how to pronounce "sigil" for the first few books, he really gets into voicing the characters). On my wife's advice, skip the first book, start with the second. We got to attend the book signings for several of them and meet Jim Butcher - fantastic author, really adept at world building.
The original Something is Out There mini-series was pretty good, but is obviously of its time now. The BBC's Invasion: Earth with Fred Ward and Anton Lesser was great.
Yes it did. I only had one issue with it. The young guy who was Peter Weller’s son would never have been an astronaut. I liked the show and hated that it didn’t have an ending.
good list. what's even more frustrating is shows that get cancelled after two or three seasons, because you've had more time to get invested in the characters. my wife and i went through a list of all the sci-fi shows that we'd watched and that had been cancelled before finishing the story and it was depressingly long. i remember Revolution (with Billy Burke) was a particularly painful one, but there are so many others.
I think Dark Skies from 1996 would be an excellent candidate. It starts off as a weird blend of horror sci-fi and period political drama, shifting more towards The Fugitive as the protagonists fall down the rabbit hole of the conspiracies and cover ups. The first season spanned the 60s; each season after was planned to cover the subsequent decades. That pace kept the show's plotlines moving forward, for the most part. There's been nothing else quite like it before or since. Unfortunately, it's not available on streaming. It's worth checking out on DVD, if you can find it.
@@skyblazeeterno Fair enough. I've seen Dark Matter as well. TBH, I'm still bummed about the last season. The series started off well and got better each year, but the last season was a mess. Oh well...
I have the DVDs for Defying Gravity, Flash Forward, Surface, and Journeyman. Threshold was another good one. It got to the point where I would predict that a show would only last one season.
@@whatisahandle221 Amazon I think. And it was a non-US version(no idea where you are), the only version I could find, so it does not play in a US DVD player. So I just ripped the episodes to my laptop. That was probably close to ten years ago.
I backed up the Journeyman episodes from my TIVO to my home server and they are still there. Another good show from the writers strike was New Amsterdam, and also KVille.
I love Journeyman and I appreciate you talking about it. My honorable mentions are K-Ville on Fox staring Cole Hauser and Anthony Anderson, New Amsterdam staring Nicholas Costoau, The Nevers, and Outsourced on NBC which us like The Office but very different.
Fabulous - and great fun from J K Simmons. “You need to stay the hell away from my life. It’s not yours. It’s a fucking vacation rental, and sooner or later I’ll be back, and you’ll come back here and nothing will have changed.”
I was captivated by UFO. Got special permission to stay up late to watch reruns of Star Trek and UFO, which were then being shown locally only on late Friday and Saturday nights. Looking for things to watch while waiting I stumbled into Monty Python's Flying Circus on Friday nights on PBS, and on late Saturday nights there was this weird then-new show called Saturday Night Live.
Journeyman was a fantastic series. The scene where he proves to his wife he time travels is one of the best "convincers" ever done in a time travel story
Brisco County Jr was what The Wild Wild West would've become had it starred James Garner (Maverick) instead of Robert Conrad. Back in the 90's, Bruce Campbell had arrived at the perfect point in his career to take us on a steampunk cowboy second childhood.
Good list, GFR! Haven't see all these one-season series, but I loved most of those I did. And the tragic thing is, most of them ended with cliffhangers. I seem to remember that _Flashforward_ had a cliffhanger or at least a lot of loose ends, and it really, really, REALLY needed to be continued. Did its ratings just not pan out? Was it too expensive? The novel was great, but this series was even better than _Lost,_ imho. _Space: Above and Beyond_ also finished unresolved (HATED that), and _Firefly_ could have become as popular as Star Trek. Okay, maybe not ST, but it would rank right up there.
@@hotdog1214 I don't recall; you could be right. Oh, there was huge potential for a season two, and I don't think we even got a full season. Agh, networks! How can you know what they'll stick with? If FOX hadn't been a struggling new network, they might have cancelled _The X-Files,_ and we all know how that turned out. I can't think that Flashforward was _that_ expensive.
No way a list of one season sci-fi shows cut short is complete without Awake, starring Jason Isaacs. That show's premise was brilliant and left with a cliffhanger.
Almost Human and Firefly, my top favourites, plus the movie Serenity. As sci-fi goes these two were really well made. Why on earth did they cut them short!?
Oddly enough, I agree with all these except for "Defying Gravity." I never heard of it. I'll have to watch it now. 🤓 Some comments about the other shows. Almost Human - It was shown out of order? Maybe that's why I lost interest after 4 episodes. I'll have to re-watch it. The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. - Great series. I got the DVD years ago. Favorite line "Thanks for the donut, Dunkin." Crusade - A good follow-up to Babylon 5 except it had a giant space pee-pee as the spaceship. 😉 Caprica - "All the marketing had the actress naked with an apple." That is my strongest memory of that show!
BSG, Caprica, the V reboot, Fallen Skies, Ascension, I suspect Defying Gravity, and now Andor fall into what I call “Nothing-Core” Shows about nothing, where nothing happens, and the characters have nothing going on. Caprica had this weird backwards storytelling where the characters would react emotionally for no reason, and the next scene they were given a reason to be angry and where just fine with it. The only other time I’ve seen something like that was Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels.
To add to the list: *The Nevers.* Very interesting steampunk sci-fi that took some surprising turns. I real,y wanted to see where it was going. If I understand correctly, it only got half a season in the US, but more episodes were shown internationally.
Two words - The Middleman. So full of pop culture references that each episode has a guide. It was on ABC Family, so noooobody saw it. It’s comfort food TV. I like the theory that Almost Human depicts the future of 80s action movies, where everything defaults to over the top violence. For vintage, one-season sci-fi, try Men Into Space from 1959/60 and the *wildly* German Space Patrol Orion, which beat Star Trek to the punch. Men Into Space is actually accurate based on what they thought at the time, and follows the space program as it builds towards a manned Mars mission.
VR.5. It might not have been completely great and certainly hasn’t aged well technology wise, but a lot of people I’ve talked to who saw it have said they loved it (in fact, the fans got together and almost got Fox to make a film to wrap up the story, but it didn;t make it past the scripting stage). I myself do also. I wish there was an official DVD release, but the closest thing to watching the show is the entire series from recorded VHSes of the broadcast via UA-cam uploads or on the Internet Archive, or for the hard to find VHS release of the show.
@@blankmike4613 Not so much forgettable. Everyone that I've talked to who remember seeing it have said they loved the show. And I myself still remember the show even after having seen the episodes when they originally aired on Fox years ago. But, to each their own. :) But I do agree, the concept is really good. I think it would have worked better if it had been set in a more cyberpunk environment instead of modern day L.A.
Firefly and Space Above and Beyond are the only ones of these I've seen. The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. sounds like a remake of the old Wild Wild West show with Robert Conrad.
*Sci-Fi One-Season Wonders* 00:31 Almost Human 01:53 Defying Gravity 02:50 Caprica 03:44 The Adventures of Briscoe County, Jr. 04:50 Firefly 05:46 Flash Forward 06:44 Space: Above and Beyond 07:24 Crusade 08:01 Surface 08:41 Journeyman
Spacehunter and Spacehunter Redux short lived sci-fi series Spacehunter is actually an excellent show. The same cast came back and redid the series as Spacehunter Redux about 10 years later.
My candidates for shows not included on this list are New Amsterdam (2008), Forever (2013), Awake (2012), and A Gifted Man (2011). New Amsterdam is especially frustrating because as far as I can tell, the episodes aren't available to watch or buy anywhere, and I thought it was great when it aired! I would love to rewatch it, but I can't. It had a very similar premise to Forever, as a show with an immortal man who decides to take up solving crimes, and also starts to fall in love. But it was the way that New Amsterdam handled the main character's immortality that I thought made it especially interesting.
Middleman was awesome. You can find a cast read of the script for unfilmed season one finale on UA-cam, "The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse". I attended that panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2009. I was at that panel, it was amazing.
I think the biggest problem Caprica had was that people were expecting space battles and evil robots, like BSG had. They didn't get that this was a prequel, set before the Cylons had become sentient, back when they were just robots. It was the build-up to the 1st Cylon war, which took place decades before BSG took place. The only anchor to BSG was the Adama family. I think some people may have also had a problem with one of the main characters, Zoe, getting killed off early in the first episode, but her consciousness living on in the virtual reality world as her VR Avatar. I was still waiting for them to explain how she pulled that off when the show got cancelled.
Dark Skies was epic, mixing an alien takeover being covered up by a shadowy government agency with real historical events. Eric Close gave a great performance as John Loengaard, an idealistic hero who wished to expose both the aliens and the shadowy government agency (Majestic) who were covering up and hunting down the alien threat.
hoping to see Awake on the list. Jason Isaacs finds himself slipping between two worlds trying to figure out which one is real and which is a dream/illusion/hallucination/psychotic break.
i also love SAAB, it along with babylon 5 is a every few year rewatch! Space above and beyond could really do with a new show recast as i think most actors have massively aged out.. but it'd be nice if they played older commander like roles. Also firefly
I watched all these series and got so cheesed off with the one season and done that I only started watching seasons after they got renewed to stop getting disappointed.
There was a show back in the 90s called VR.5 that only lasted one season. It was pretty great but never got a DVD box set and I don't think it's available for streaming anywhere.
aww, thats tragic, well I hope one day, you walk into your local Walmart and you walk past that $5 movie box and find a box set of VR5 at the top of the pile, you deserve it.
A sci-fi TV show that absolutely everyone on UA-cam overlooks is 'Missions' possibly because it is in French, English, and Russian. Also, the Americans in the show are not necessarily the 'good guys' or even the main characters.
Debris is high on my list. If anyone caught it while it was on air, consider yourself lucky. I was disappointed when it got cancelled. I even joined a Facebook group dedicated to the show. Something I've never done before 😂
Unfortunately it got a "meh" second season which made sure there wouldn't be a third, and therefore doesn't qualify for this list, but the show that went completely under my radar and that had such a huge potential and top-notch cast (like JK Simmons) was "Counterpart". Blew my mind watching it.
I loved Brisco County Jr. Bruce was great! What catagory would you put the one season of, The Lone Gunmen? Space: Above And Beyond, was a masterpiece. One live action series I watched here was, Patlabor, about police mecha, made in Japan, and is based on both a manga, and anime. Take care, and all the best.
I have a feeling that this kind of choice of your video title's here would fit on a more Bigger Exampled kind of setting -(of the)- like the main Destiny omniverses'/franchise's instead, hm. (even if we don't have Any official form of Anime/or western animated/movie(s)/western TV series/etc type of motions media anyways, for you for example to look into, back with that kind of Lazy studios (bungo, or bungle-Whatever the heck they are called)).
@@GiantFreakinRobot The only time I saw it was the pilot and the conspiracy was certainly timely and the escape sequence (that led to the title) was well edited.
@@mamatmag Aw, you are right. I think of it as one since the first season was only six episodes and I think of all fourteen episodes as one season and name them as such. I stand corrected, sir.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Almost Human aka Law and Order 2050. Karl Urban was the emotionless human cop. Michael Ely was his hyper empathetic robot activist partner.
Stories about smart houses killing intruders, smart bullets that use your website history to track you through the city, the rights of clones, sex robots with human skin.
This show was GREAT!
Something like Firefly is probably just given a lifetime achievement award for this sort of list and ineligible for competition.
Yeah I seriously almost left it off for that reason
@guaposneeze they had it on their friday night minefield like brisco county mantis dollhouse
Ive never understood the appeal of the series as it seemed to be Whedon cashing in on Buffy The Vampire Slayers success
No it was a western in space mal and jane are like the quantrill raiders that populate spaghetti westerns
@@GiantFreakinRobot debris should be on this list
Earth 2 was another good show that had only one season. I wish it could be revived or rebooted.
Liked that show too.
No, it really wasn't. It was yet another poorly thought out sci-fi show made by a bunch of REALLY bad storytellers. When one of your main characters is such an annoying little brat that your audience is rooting for the dirt snorkelling aliens to eat him & poo the remains out so there's no chance of him coming back . . . You know that there are major issues with the show!
I loved it too. It was TOO woke, before there was even woke.
I miss Maddie.
Brisco County Jr. was great - plus it had Sam Axe in in it, who was undeniably the best character in Burn Notice and just a fantastic easy to love actor.
It always reminded me of The Wild Wild West, which also had a flair for science fiction nuances.
Thanks for including "Defying Gravity", I loved it and still mourn after it. It had a brilliant premise. "Space Above and Beyond" was another gem. I agree with most of your list. Also "Limitless" and "Jericho" had potential, IMHO.
Great list. I would also mentions "Invasion," a 1997 ABC TV series which told the story of the aftermath of a hurricane in which water-based creatures infiltrate a small Florida town and begin to take over the bodies of the town's inhabitants. It was a sort of so=low burn "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and had a creepy, paranoid air.
That show was from, 2005 not 1997. It was on the same season as Threshold and Surface. When all the networks were looking for the next Lost.
@@tgs1766 Threshold, Surface, and Invasion... it was a great year for one-shot series. I miss every one of them.
Space above and beyond was awesome!!!
Still have my DVD box set along with Harsh Realm.
Still a favorite of mine
Surface was a tragic loss. It was just getting good. Of course You really should have mentioned Threshold. One season and cut off in it's prime. Had BIG names like Carla Gugino, Peter Dinklage, Catherine Bell, Brent Spiner, Charles Dutton and many others. GREAT show that never got any follow through.
I watched Defying Gravity when it aired and loved it. I also bought the DVD's and still have them. I also loved Journey Man. I wish both of these shows had not been canceled so early. Terra Nova was another good show that only lasted one season and should have kept going.
I totally agree with you!!!!!
yes! Terra Nova was getting 'legs' - a show that improved as it developed. Expensive to produce for the ratings I believe.
If you haven’t already seen it, make sure you search for the interviews done with James Parriot that describe how Defying Gravity would have ended.
Absolutely loved Briscoe!
Flashforward was fantastic. It's a grave injustice that it wasn't given at least one more season.
Absolutely agree, it was so intricate in its story and weaving of elements. I loved it, so sad that it didn't continue but glad it got a mention here as it seems to have gone relatively unknown.
Too bad it didn't follow the source material very well.
@@MrGrumblier - I was actually fine with the changes. Reducing the "flashforward" time to 6 months instead of 21 years really raised the stakes for the characters; smart move for a TV show.
@@cosmicphoto05 That part I agree with since it is hard to do a TV show that spans 21 years, on the other hand, 6 months seemed a little too short, almost like they knew they'd only get one season.
One rarely mentioned, but had huge missed potential was the BBC's ambitious 'Outcasts.' A fairly slow burn that centred mainly on the interpersonal relationships, but then dropped a massive cliffhanger ending at the end of the season.
I don’t think I’ve ever even seen anyone mention it!
@@GiantFreakinRobotJamie Bamber of BSG was in it. Briefly. I actually just found the DVD set locally at a used store for $4.
Thanks for reminding us of Almost Human-Karl Urban is great playing irascible.
Yes! Outcasts. Great slow burn show. Such a cliffhanger. A serious sci fi show. I was headed to the comments to mention it. Maybe one day someone will tell us what the plan for the show was.
Space Above and Beyond, if the creators had a five years plan, it's really surprising that no one as yet considered to launch a remake of this.
But Space was a constantly miserable show. People want to have a good time watching TV & Movies 😊
I loved Space Above and Beyond when it aired. But I was young and easily impressed at the time. A few years ago, I saw it on DVD and fairly cheap, so I bought it and watched it again. To be honest, it was pretty rough rewatching it years later. To be fair, a few episodes where really good. Mostly, the ones near the end of the series where they got serious about setting up the ongoing story arcs. But a lot of the episodes where hokey and lame. Based on the last few episodes, I think the show had serious potential, but unfortunately, by the time it really got going, most people had already tuned out. I remember hearing about how it actually debuted with really good ratings, but viewership quickly collapsed. And when I rewatched it, I can understand why. But it's unfortunate, because it's clear they had some good ideas.
The Almost Human episode "Skin" was beautiful, heart-rending art.
Ascension was another one season wonder, along with Debris.
Ascension was great - although the "ending" felt like they'd skipped a whole season to get to it.
Debris, however.... some great ideas, but talk about "treading water" - until the baffling final episode, when I just shrugged...
Does anyone remember Syfy's "First Wave"? Great potential about alien invasion using the prophecies of Nostradamus. Wish it would come out on Blu-Ray!
yep, good show... brought in Traci Lords in a decent role... Left me wanting more... instead we got Warehouse 13.
Always loved the space fighters, in Space above and beyond. You enter the cockpit then it decends down one level to conect with the rest of the ship. You see stuff like that as a kid you go upstairs tip all you lego on your bedroom floor and build your own.
I have seen it since it was first aired (about 30 years ago), but I was a fan of Earth 2. I think it only had one season
Earth 2 had its ups and downs. But it had Tim Curry so I should have put it on here.
Two of my favorites are John Doe and Dresden Files. However, I don't know if they are Sci Fi or Fantasy.
Close enough... and I'll have to check out John Doe, as I loved Dresden Files.
The Dresden Files TV series was interesting, but the Dresden Files *book series* are a hundred times better. And there are audiobooks available of the series, read by James Marsters ("Spike" from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) - these are phenomenal (once you get past that James didn't know how to pronounce "sigil" for the first few books, he really gets into voicing the characters). On my wife's advice, skip the first book, start with the second. We got to attend the book signings for several of them and meet Jim Butcher - fantastic author, really adept at world building.
The original Something is Out There mini-series was pretty good, but is obviously of its time now. The BBC's Invasion: Earth with Fred Ward and Anton Lesser was great.
Odyssey 5 had huge potential
Yes it did. I only had one issue with it. The young guy who was Peter Weller’s son would never have been an astronaut.
I liked the show and hated that it didn’t have an ending.
It had only one season?
I thought that it had two.
good list. what's even more frustrating is shows that get cancelled after two or three seasons, because you've had more time to get invested in the characters. my wife and i went through a list of all the sci-fi shows that we'd watched and that had been cancelled before finishing the story and it was depressingly long. i remember Revolution (with Billy Burke) was a particularly painful one, but there are so many others.
I loved Almost Human. Really bummed when it was shut down.
Karl Urban plays irascible wonderfully eg here and McCoy.
I think Dark Skies from 1996 would be an excellent candidate. It starts off as a weird blend of horror sci-fi and period political drama, shifting more towards The Fugitive as the protagonists fall down the rabbit hole of the conspiracies and cover ups. The first season spanned the 60s; each season after was planned to cover the subsequent decades. That pace kept the show's plotlines moving forward, for the most part. There's been nothing else quite like it before or since.
Unfortunately, it's not available on streaming. It's worth checking out on DVD, if you can find it.
It has more than 1 season so doesnt fit the videos criteria
@@skyblazeeterno A show that was cancelled after *ONE* season doesn't have more than one season. LOL
@@RationalistRebel sorry I confused it with another series Dark Matter
@@skyblazeeterno Fair enough.
I've seen Dark Matter as well. TBH, I'm still bummed about the last season. The series started off well and got better each year, but the last season was a mess. Oh well...
I have the DVDs for Defying Gravity, Flash Forward, Surface, and Journeyman. Threshold was another good one. It got to the point where I would predict that a show would only last one season.
Wow!!!! Streaming could never.
Wow! Where did you get Journeyman?
@@whatisahandle221 Amazon I think. And it was a non-US version(no idea where you are), the only version I could find, so it does not play in a US DVD player. So I just ripped the episodes to my laptop. That was probably close to ten years ago.
I backed up the Journeyman episodes from my TIVO to my home server and they are still there. Another good show from the writers strike was New Amsterdam, and also KVille.
I love Journeyman and I appreciate you talking about it. My honorable mentions are K-Ville on Fox staring Cole Hauser and Anthony Anderson, New Amsterdam staring Nicholas Costoau, The Nevers, and Outsourced on NBC which us like The Office but very different.
Can I offer a two seasons honourable, mention Counterpart.
Fabulous - and great fun from J K Simmons.
“You need to stay the hell away from my life. It’s not yours. It’s a fucking vacation rental, and sooner or later I’ll be back, and you’ll come back here and nothing will have changed.”
If you go fro 2 seasons Id offer Undone
The Gerry Anderson show UFO was sadly cut short. It was replaced by the massively inferior Space 1999.
I was captivated by UFO. Got special permission to stay up late to watch reruns of Star Trek and UFO, which were then being shown locally only on late Friday and Saturday nights. Looking for things to watch while waiting I stumbled into Monty Python's Flying Circus on Friday nights on PBS, and on late Saturday nights there was this weird then-new show called Saturday Night Live.
Define Gravity had so much potential and I was so invested in the characters. It’s pathetic that it was canceled.
Thanks for including Surface
Threshold I thought ought be on this list. It was very good and ended on a cliff hanger.
Journeyman looks interesting. I saw Kevin McKidd in Rome but nothing else. (Rome was a great historic fantasy if that also appeals.)
Journeyman was a fantastic series. The scene where he proves to his wife he time travels is one of the best "convincers" ever done in a time travel story
Excellent list, I have seen them all and the ones mentioned in the comments lol I must be a geek 😂
Thanks for the list. gonna check it all out!!!!
6:45 bought this dvd set today!!
Ah! Surface! Forgot all about that show, it was pretty good, if I recall. I'll have to find it to watch somewhere.
Loved Space above and Beyond, Is a very good space sifi show with good action and a story line.
Brisco County Jr was what The Wild Wild West would've become had it starred James Garner (Maverick) instead of Robert Conrad. Back in the 90's, Bruce Campbell had arrived at the perfect point in his career to take us on a steampunk cowboy second childhood.
Hmm. I'll have to think about that.
Good list, GFR! Haven't see all these one-season series, but I loved most of those I did. And the tragic thing is, most of them ended with cliffhangers. I seem to remember that _Flashforward_ had a cliffhanger or at least a lot of loose ends, and it really, really, REALLY needed to be continued. Did its ratings just not pan out? Was it too expensive? The novel was great, but this series was even better than _Lost,_ imho. _Space: Above and Beyond_ also finished unresolved (HATED that), and _Firefly_ could have become as popular as Star Trek. Okay, maybe not ST, but it would rank right up there.
Wasn't there another flash forward at the end of FlashForward? Memory is vague but I think you are right, there was a setup for potential S2.
@@hotdog1214 I don't recall; you could be right. Oh, there was huge potential for a season two, and I don't think we even got a full season. Agh, networks! How can you know what they'll stick with? If FOX hadn't been a struggling new network, they might have cancelled _The X-Files,_ and we all know how that turned out. I can't think that Flashforward was _that_ expensive.
No way a list of one season sci-fi shows cut short is complete without Awake, starring Jason Isaacs. That show's premise was brilliant and left with a cliffhanger.
I swore I had seen this series but on checking IMDB it seems I havent but it looks good - so thanks for the recommendation
I thought Surface was quite good and would have loved to have had more. Lake Bell did a great job.
Almost Human and Firefly, my top favourites, plus the movie Serenity. As sci-fi goes these two were really well made. Why on earth did they cut them short!?
Crusade: Technomages were a fascinating concept in B5 and I’m sorry we didn’t get more Crusade to explore them.
I know! Sad :(
Oddly enough, I agree with all these except for "Defying Gravity." I never heard of it. I'll have to watch it now. 🤓
Some comments about the other shows.
Almost Human - It was shown out of order? Maybe that's why I lost interest after 4 episodes. I'll have to re-watch it.
The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. - Great series. I got the DVD years ago. Favorite line "Thanks for the donut, Dunkin."
Crusade - A good follow-up to Babylon 5 except it had a giant space pee-pee as the spaceship. 😉
Caprica - "All the marketing had the actress naked with an apple." That is my strongest memory of that show!
BSG, Caprica, the V reboot, Fallen Skies, Ascension, I suspect Defying Gravity, and now Andor fall into what I call “Nothing-Core”
Shows about nothing, where nothing happens, and the characters have nothing going on.
Caprica had this weird backwards storytelling where the characters would react emotionally for no reason, and the next scene they were given a reason to be angry and where just fine with it.
The only other time I’ve seen something like that was Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels.
Some great shows listed here and so many of them tossed aside well before their time, how network could ditch Almost Human is beyond me.
To add to the list: *The Nevers.* Very interesting steampunk sci-fi that took some surprising turns. I real,y wanted to see where it was going. If I understand correctly, it only got half a season in the US, but more episodes were shown internationally.
Two words - The Middleman. So full of pop culture references that each episode has a guide. It was on ABC Family, so noooobody saw it. It’s comfort food TV.
I like the theory that Almost Human depicts the future of 80s action movies, where everything defaults to over the top violence.
For vintage, one-season sci-fi, try Men Into Space from 1959/60 and the *wildly* German Space Patrol Orion, which beat Star Trek to the punch. Men Into Space is actually accurate based on what they thought at the time, and follows the space program as it builds towards a manned Mars mission.
I was about to mention The Middleman
Anything which only has one series already has a big plus in my books.
I really liked Almost Human.
Almost human was amazing.
VR.5. It might not have been completely great and certainly hasn’t aged well technology wise, but a lot of people I’ve talked to who saw it have said they loved it (in fact, the fans got together and almost got Fox to make a film to wrap up the story, but it didn;t make it past the scripting stage). I myself do also. I wish there was an official DVD release, but the closest thing to watching the show is the entire series from recorded VHSes of the broadcast via UA-cam uploads or on the Internet Archive, or for the hard to find VHS release of the show.
Liked it too, as I just started working for Pacific Bell phone co, witch became Verizon. Nice concept, so forgettable. forgettable
@@blankmike4613 Not so much forgettable. Everyone that I've talked to who remember seeing it have said they loved the show. And I myself still remember the show even after having seen the episodes when they originally aired on Fox years ago. But, to each their own. :)
But I do agree, the concept is really good. I think it would have worked better if it had been set in a more cyberpunk environment instead of modern day L.A.
Firefly and Space Above and Beyond are the only ones of these I've seen.
The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. sounds like a remake of the old Wild Wild West show with Robert Conrad.
Enjoyed every one of these shows...except Brisco County, which, regretfully, I still need to watch.
I adored Defying Gravity, devastated when it was cancelled!
(My) Honorable mentions would be "Threshhold" with Brent Spiner, and "Otherworld", an early 80's bit of strangeness.
You should look up a show called Q.E.D. starring Sam Waterston from 1982, it only made it thru 6 episodes but had huge potential.
One of my favorite shows from youth. I found all the full episodes on UA-cam a few months back and I think they hold up.
@@scipio7766 Never thought to look for it on YT, thanks! It's a binge weekend for Q.E.D.
Any thoughts on Now and Again? I actually can't remember it in great detail but do remember watching it and that it had a great theme tune.
Great to see SAAB in the list. Shame it never got more than one season.
Crusade was essentially Space Battleship Yamato with a less singular focus.
The peripheral was really good. It’s first season but then Covid hit and Amazon canceled it
Out of this list only Almost Human and Firefly would get my vote for an extended run.
So many fantastic sci-fi series ended on frustrating cliffhangers, such as “Odyssey 5” which aired on Showtime for 1 season.
*Sci-Fi One-Season Wonders*
00:31 Almost Human
01:53 Defying Gravity
02:50 Caprica
03:44 The Adventures of Briscoe County, Jr.
04:50 Firefly
05:46 Flash Forward
06:44 Space: Above and Beyond
07:24 Crusade
08:01 Surface
08:41 Journeyman
Space:1999 should have only had one season . Buck Rogers in 25 th century too.
Spacehunter and Spacehunter Redux
short lived sci-fi series Spacehunter is actually an excellent show.
The same cast came back and redid the series as Spacehunter Redux about 10 years later.
Brisco was great. We needed more.
surface was good
plus lake bell
My candidates for shows not included on this list are New Amsterdam (2008), Forever (2013), Awake (2012), and A Gifted Man (2011). New Amsterdam is especially frustrating because as far as I can tell, the episodes aren't available to watch or buy anywhere, and I thought it was great when it aired! I would love to rewatch it, but I can't. It had a very similar premise to Forever, as a show with an immortal man who decides to take up solving crimes, and also starts to fall in love. But it was the way that New Amsterdam handled the main character's immortality that I thought made it especially interesting.
I wonder if the 2005 series Invasion should get an honorable mention. I know the 2008 series The Middleman definitely should.
Middleman was awesome. You can find a cast read of the script for unfilmed season one finale on UA-cam, "The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse". I attended that panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2009. I was at that panel, it was amazing.
@@thorin01 Thank you!
I think the biggest problem Caprica had was that people were expecting space battles and evil robots, like BSG had. They didn't get that this was a prequel, set before the Cylons had become sentient, back when they were just robots. It was the build-up to the 1st Cylon war, which took place decades before BSG took place. The only anchor to BSG was the Adama family. I think some people may have also had a problem with one of the main characters, Zoe, getting killed off early in the first episode, but her consciousness living on in the virtual reality world as her VR Avatar. I was still waiting for them to explain how she pulled that off when the show got cancelled.
The single season of NeXt - from just a couple of years ago - was great.
Dark Skies was epic, mixing an alien takeover being covered up by a shadowy government agency with real historical events. Eric Close gave a great performance as John Loengaard, an idealistic hero who wished to expose both the aliens and the shadowy government agency (Majestic) who were covering up and hunting down the alien threat.
"7 Days" was another cool series. However, like "Journeyman", it was eclipsed by "Quantum Leap".
hoping to see Awake on the list. Jason Isaacs finds himself slipping between two worlds trying to figure out which one is real and which is a dream/illusion/hallucination/psychotic break.
Agreed! That show was so interesting!
John Doe (Fox 2002) should get an honorable mention on this list.
Defying Gravity was the greatest frustration of my scifi fan life.
Threshold (2005-2006) should be on this list. With Brent Spiner, Peter Dinklage, Rob Benedict in the cast
Almost human is one of those 10 season super shows we could've had.
i also love SAAB, it along with babylon 5 is a every few year rewatch!
Space above and beyond could really do with a new show recast as i think most actors have massively aged out.. but it'd be nice if they played older commander like roles.
Also firefly
Yep. Show was great. No one knows
Another less than one season show that I liked was "Threshold." Had some promise and was going somewhere before it was pulled off the air.
I'll add 'Night Sky', and 'Tales from the Loop' to this list.
Strange Luck, VR5, Earth 2, if you do a part 2.
Definitely VR-5.
Almost Human was great!
I watched all these series and got so cheesed off with the one season and done that I only started watching seasons after they got renewed to stop getting disappointed.
Earth 2, The Event, Invasion, John Doe, Terranova, Odyssey 5, Threshold, Strange world, Dark skies
Also, Threshold, Seven Days and Dark Matter
There was a show back in the 90s called VR.5 that only lasted one season. It was pretty great but never got a DVD box set and I don't think it's available for streaming anywhere.
Have you tried eBay.
@GiantFreakinRobot Yes, actually. The video was low-res to the point of being unwatchable.
aww, thats tragic, well I hope one day, you walk into your local Walmart and you walk past that $5 movie box and find a box set of VR5 at the top of the pile, you deserve it.
A sci-fi TV show that absolutely everyone on UA-cam overlooks is 'Missions' possibly because it is in French, English, and Russian. Also, the Americans in the show are not necessarily the 'good guys' or even the main characters.
Debris is high on my list. If anyone caught it while it was on air, consider yourself lucky. I was disappointed when it got cancelled. I even joined a Facebook group dedicated to the show. Something I've never done before 😂
Does anybody remember some of these series?
Threshold
First wave
The invisible Man
seaQuest
V
Black scorpion
Flash Gordon
Painkiller Jane
Tremors
Threshold was an interesting idea. The best part, however, was it introduced us to Peter Dinklage.
Another science fiction series of note was 'Believe'.
Unfortunately it got a "meh" second season which made sure there wouldn't be a third, and therefore doesn't qualify for this list, but the show that went completely under my radar and that had such a huge potential and top-notch cast (like JK Simmons) was "Counterpart". Blew my mind watching it.
If you want a more action focused prequel to BSG 04 I highly recommend the turn-based strategy game BSG: Deadlock.
Anyone else remember Dark Skies?
Yep, it started quite strong. I don't recall where it ended up.
I loved Brisco County Jr. Bruce was great!
What catagory would you put the one season of, The Lone Gunmen?
Space: Above And Beyond, was a masterpiece.
One live action series I watched here was, Patlabor, about police mecha, made in Japan, and is based on both a manga, and anime.
Take care, and all the best.
Lone Gunmen would qualify. We did a full video on it recently, so I didn't want to repeat ourselves on it!
@@GiantFreakinRobot should've included "next" since it involves a.i.
Odyssey 5 appears to missing from this list. Since that set up a complex mystery then just ended after 19 episodes.
@@GiantFreakinRobot you also forgot "The Peripheral".
@@GiantFreakinRobot You left out "Captain Nice" "The Lost Saucer" and "Far Out Space Nuts."
I liked Surface. I'm probably one of dozens of people.
Crusade and other possible Babylon 5 spinoffs had so much potential. Network executives just do NOT understand good sci-fi.
I have a feeling that this kind of choice of your video title's here would fit on a more Bigger Exampled kind of setting -(of the)- like the main Destiny omniverses'/franchise's instead, hm.
(even if we don't have Any official form of Anime/or western animated/movie(s)/western TV series/etc type of motions media anyways, for you for example to look into, back with that kind of Lazy studios (bungo, or bungle-Whatever the heck they are called)).
Loved surface
Max Headroom.
Was that show actually good though?
@@GiantFreakinRobot The only time I saw it was the pilot and the conspiracy was certainly timely and the escape sequence (that led to the title) was well edited.
Yes, and it made two seasons.
@@mamatmag Aw, you are right. I think of it as one since the first season was only six episodes and I think of all fourteen episodes as one season and name them as such. I stand corrected, sir.
@@GiantFreakinRobot aside from two episodes later in the second season, I’d say that it is. There’s nothing like it.
Also, Caprica was awesome, better than BSG. Budget killed it.
I really enjoyed Caprica when I watched through it. I remember when they went under, kinda sad