10 Failed TV Shows That Became Cult Classics
Firefly, we hardly knew ye.
As complicated as the world of filmmaking is, the machinations of TV are even more chaotic and difficult to understand.
With most shows operating on a season-by-season basis for their survival, it's sadly all too common for beloved shows to get the chop long before they've had a chance to live out their natural creative lives.
The annals of TV history are littered with great shows that struggled to find an audience, for one reason or another, and consequently were no longer a viable property for their respective network.
While there are tales of passionate fan campaigns bringing shows back from the dead - Arrested Development being perhaps the most famous case - this is of course a rare exception, and most of the time, "failed" shows tend to just stay dead.
But the premature cancellation generally only fuelled fans' dedicated enthusiasm, and thanks to the posterity of DVD and streaming, many of these shows have found a greater posthumous fandom than they ever did while they were on the air.
It's in many ways a shame that some of these shows weren't saved for the streaming era, because one suspects they might've fared much better outside of the traditional, rigid network TV model.
Whether felled by poor ratings or middling reviews (or both), each of these shows has nevertheless become a cult smash after the fact, and continues to live on years, even decades later...