Sci-fi shows that didn't live up to expectations
were often unceremoniously canceled in the
'90s, usually for complicated, fascinating,
and bizarre reasons.
Here's why some sci-fi classics, near-classics,
and never-got-to-be-classics had their runs
cut short.
Even today, the concept of Quantum Leap is
pretty novel, offering up endless possibilities
for a sci-fi show.
Dr. Sam Beckett develops time-travel technology
and tests it on himself, traveling into the
past and temporarily appearing as a different
person in each episode.
"Oh, boy."
After some humorous growing pains as Sam gets
used to his new identity, he ultimately rolls
with it and invariably leaves his momentary
host's life a little bit better than before
he arrived.
And his guide through it all is a present
day-based hologram version of his friend,
Al.
Not only one of the few network sci-fi shows
of the time, the 1989-1993 series was the
rare genre show to receive attention from
mainstream awards bodies.
Quantum Leap earned three Emmy nominations
for Outstanding Drama Series, while stars
Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell both won a
Golden Globe.
But in spite of the acclaim, Quantum Leap
never leapt to the top of the TV ratings chart.
NBC frequently bounced it around multiple
time slots during its four-year run, making
it hard for fans to find.
Viewership numbers reflected that, as the
series never ranked higher than #53 in the
annual ratings.
In 1993, NBC canceled Quantum Leap…and Sam
never even made it home.
It's only recently that superhero-based series
have become mainstream entertainment worthy
of huge budgets and good time slots.
In fall 2019, half the CW's 12 primetime shows
were based on DC Comics characters.
One that's been consistently popular since
its debut is The Flash, which stars Grant
Gustin as Barry Allen, aka the title character
who wears a red jumpsuit and can run preposterously
fast.
However, it's actually the second network
primetime show about the speedster, following
CBS' 1990 series The Flash, starring John
Wesley Shipp as the world's quickest hero.
A dark, moody, crime-heavy show, CBS had a
lot of faith in the series, dropping a whopping
$6 million on the pilot episode alone, including
$100,000 on Shipp's Flash costume.
"So, uh…what am I wearing here?"
CBS didn't play it safe with the scheduling
though, placing The Flash, a 60-minute show,
in a bizarre, hour-straddling time slot of
8:30 PM to 9:30 PM, opposite NBC's mega-hits
A Different World and Cheers, as well as Fox's
hot soap Beverly Hills, 90210.
Too few people watched such an expensive show,
and CBS stopped it after its one and only
season.
The early '90s NBC series seaQuest DSV had
all the makings of a hit.
After all, the show was set on a high-tech,
deep-sea vessel staffed by genius scientists
portrayed by the likes of Jaws star Roy Scheider
and teen heartthrob of the moment Jonathan
Brandis as they had exciting, action-packed,
sci-fi adventures.
The crew also interacted with a talking dolphin
named Darwin and met a mermaid.
A joint production of Universal Studios and
Steven Spielberg's Amblin Television, it boasted
a huge per-episode budget that made for great-for-TV-at-the-time
special effects.
And yet, NBC couldn't pull in a big audience.
For its freshman season, seaQuest DSV ranked
a lowly #83 in the ratings, perhaps because
it aired opposite CBS' very popular Murder,
She Wrote and Fox's Martin.
Efforts to revamp the series, switching out
cast members, committing to less science-heavy
stories, and venturing outside of the submarine
more often, only worked a little, with the
show moving up to 64th place in the ratings
for the 1994/1995 season.
For season three, producers once more made
broad changes, moving the action ahead ten
years, dumping Scheider in favor of Michael
Ironside as a new captain, and renaming the
show seaQuest 2032.
That didn't do the trick, as the show fell
to a lowly #117 before NBC permanently sank
the series.
Anchoring Nickelodeon's Saturday-night SNICK
lineup for most of the mid-'90s, The Secret
World of Alex Mack was a sci-fi show about
an Arizona teenager who gets covered in a
secret proprietary chemical that gives her
powers like telekinesis, the ability to shoot
electricity out of her fingertips, and to
transform into a sentient puddle at will.
"One minute I'm walking home, and the next
there's a crash and I'm drenched in some weird
chemical."
The powers were difficult to control and often
arbitrary, making The Secret World of Alex
Mack a sci-fi allegory about the constantly
baffling weirdness of adolescence.
Alex Mack ran on Nickelodeon from 1994 to
1998, and the network was more than willing
to green-light a fifth season.
Executive producer and co-creator Tommy Lynch
took star Larisa Oleynik, along with her mother
and manager, out to a fancy dinner at a Hollywood
restaurant.
There, he formally presented his offer for
season five, which also included a substantial
amount of money and a proposal of an Alex
Mack movie.
However, Oleynik said no thanks.
The actress told HuffPost:
"It was an incredible thing he was offering
me, and I knew that at the time, but I was
a little burnt out."
She wanted to finish high school and attend
college and also leave the Alex Mack character
where she was at with the conclusion of season
four.
As Oleynik explained:
"She was starting to grow up and that last
season, she gets a boyfriend...I just kind
of wanted to keep it innocent."
Babylon 5 was among the most prominent sci-fi
shows of the '90s.
Its first four seasons aired on local TV stations
affiliated with the Prime Time Entertainment
Network programming block, and when that conglomeration
went defunct, the show finished its run on
cable network TNT.
Babylon 5 ran for five seasons, as had been
the intent from the beginning for creator
J. Michael Straczynski.
He'd mapped out one big, grand story about
a space station, its inhabitants, and the
sometimes warring alien races it encounters.
In 1999, about a year and a half after the
final Babylon 5 aired, TNT broadcast A Call
to Arms, a Babylon 5 made-for-TV movie that
acted as a bridge and set-up to a new space-set
series called Crusade.
An entire first season of 13 episodes were
written, shot, and completed, only for TNT
to preemptively cancel Crusade before its
premiere, rendering the whole thing a "limited
series."
According to Stracyznski, TNT wanted the show
to appeal to a broader audience, and the studio
made him comply with its creative demands.
Ultimately, Stracyznski didn't give the network
what it wanted, so it pulled the plug.
Superboy got off to a rocky start.
Debuting in syndication in 1988, the show
followed Superman, aka Clark Kent, just before
he'd grow into his powers as the Man of Steel
and find work as a journalist at The Daily
Planet.
John Haymes Newton won the role of college-age
Superman, but he was fired after season one
when he asked for more money.
"Could it be because you always have your
greedy paws where they don't belong?"
That also happened to be around the same time
he arguably violated a morals clause in his
contract with a public drunkenness arrest.
Producer Ilya Salkind replaced him with 31-year-old
baby-faced model-turned-actor Gerard Christopher,
who proved a good fit.
The ratings for the newly rebranded The Adventures
of Superboy flew into the list of the ten
most watched syndicated TV series a few episodes
after his arrival.
The Adventures of Superboy ran for 100 episodes
over four seasons, and it was popular enough
to keep going, but Superman-controlling studio
Warner Brothers wouldn't have it.
It had started work on a new Superman TV series,
Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,
set to air in primetime on network television,
making it a much more high profile project
than the lowly syndicated Superboy.
Warner not only wouldn't renew the show, but
the studio filed paperwork regarding Salkind's
right to make Superman television, preventing
even Superboy reruns from airing.
In 1993, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers debuted,
and it quickly became a multi-media kiddie
phenomenon not seen since the likes of Masters
of the Universe a decade earlier.
The plot followed a group of teenagers who
were bestowed with mystical martial arts abilities
and the control of giant robots, which they
used to fight space monsters.
Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers dominated the
ratings while action figures of the different
Power Rangers flew off the shelves.
A year later, the children's television landscape
was flooded with blatant Power Rangers clones,
including Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters
from Beverly Hills, Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad,
and VR Troopers.
"Trooper transform!"
"We are VR!"
In that series, a group of friends are given
fighting suits and powerful vehicles by the
mysterious Professor Hart, who needs them
to fight the menacing army of Grimlord, which
is attempting to break out of the virtual
reality world and into the meatspace.
Unlike the Power Rangers, the VR Troopers
weren't teens but well into their 20s.
And unlike the other Power Rangers clones,
VR Troopers lasted two seasons as opposed
to one.
What ultimately did it in was that it couldn't
compete with Power Rangers where it really
counted, toy sales.
The whole point of VR Troopers was to move
toys, and not enough kids bought the merchandise
to justify a third season of the TV show.
If you were a kid, tween, or non-partying
adult in the early '90s, the place to be on
Friday nights was in front of the TV, tuned
in to ABC's "TGIF" lineup of sappy, family-friendly
programming like Full House, Family Matters,
and Step by Step.
By 1996, many "TGIF" shows were fading, and
ABC made attempts to lure in newer and even
younger viewers with puppet-based programming.
And during that season, Muppets Tonight and
Aliens in the Family joined TGIF.
The first was an update of the classic The
Muppet Show while the latter was a bizarre
sci-fi sitcom about a Brady Bunch-esque blended
family, except dad Doug Brody and his kids
were human, and mom Cookie and her offspring
were mildly monstrous aliens.
Their meet-cute?
Cookie abducted Doug, and then he fell in
love with her.
The show's real star was the strange and grotesque
Bobut, a talking baby genius with a taste
for chaos and destruction.
The creature even had a catchphrase:
"I require pudding."
"Pudding?
In the morning?
I don't think that's a very good-"
"Nowwww!"
Although the aliens were the work of the famous
Jim Henson's Creature Shop, the tonally dissonant
Aliens in the Family didn't mesh with the
rest of TGIF, and it lasted just eight episodes.
Nor did it help to revamp the TGIF lineup,
which by fall 1996 was back to its lineup
of teen-centered shows.
Star Trek: The Next Generation revived and
reinvented the Star Trek franchise on the
small screen, leaving behind the original
series' campy vibe and clunky effects in favor
of sleek, high production values.
But it also ramped up the thoughtful, meaningful
allegorical plots, all led by the captivating
Patrick Stewart as the kind and brave Captain
Jean-Luc Picard.
After seven successful seasons, The Next Generation
wrapped up with a finale episode that drew
more than 31 million viewers, blockbuster
ratings for a network TV show but unheard
of for a series syndicated to individual local
stations.
A few months later, the show received an Emmy
nomination for Outstanding Drama Series, which
was an extreme rarity for a non-network show
and a sci-fi series.
So why would Paramount set phasers to "cancel"?
The big screen beckoned.
Just four days after the last episode of The
Next Generation wrapped, cast members reported
to a different stage on the Paramount lot
to film Star Trek: Generations, the first
movie in the long-running blockbuster franchise
to feature the casts of both flagship Star
Trek shows.
In that film, the old crew passed the torch
to the newer one.
William Shatner's Captain Kirk died, making
room for Picard and company to occupy three
more Star Trek movies.
With the commercial and critical popularity
of Star Trek: The Next Generation, it was
clear that '90s TV viewers wanted more science
fiction options, particularly Star Trek shows.
In 1993, the space station-set Star Trek:
Deep Space Nine debuted in syndication, featuring
Avery Brooks as commanding officer Benjamin
Sisko, the first African-American lead character
in franchise history.
"I can assure you, this old cat may not be
as toothless as you think.
Right now I've got 5000 photon torpedoes armed
and ready to launch."
DS9 earned solid ratings in syndication for
most of its early seasons, guaranteeing at
least a moderately long run.
The success of Fox in the late '80s and early
'90s showed the TV industry that there was
room on the dial beyond the "big three" of
ABC, CBS, and NBC.
In 1993, plans for new channels UPN and WB
were underway.
The new networks competed to nail down affiliates,
most of which were formerly independent channels
around the U.S., and which had relied heavily
on syndicated programming like Deep Space
Nine.
In short order, a few hundred formerly independent
stations signed up to air UPN and WB programming,
and non-network shows suddenly had less access
to airtime.
Oddly enough, UPN was operated by Paramount,
the rights holder of Star Trek properties.
The very first show ever broadcast on UPN?
Voyager, another Star Trek series.
"Don't let them do anything that takes you
off the bridge of that ship, because while
you're there, you can make a difference."
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