10 TV Shows That Failed Spectacularly In Their Final Season

The legacy of Star Trek: The Original Series undeniably speaks for itself, yet even the biggest Trekkie will struggle to rustle up a passionate defense for the entirety of its largely dreadful third and final season.

After gingerly avoiding cancellation amid underwhelming ratings in its first two seasons, NBC opted to slash the third season's budget, in turn limiting the number of scenes set outside the Enterprise. However, this was really just the beginning of season three's problems.

Creator Gene Roddenberry withdrew from overseeing the series due to his dissatisfaction with NBC placing it in an undesirable time slot, and many of the show's best writers also left, ensuring the creative suffered significantly.

This resulted in a battery of poor episodes including the infamous "Spock's Brain" - where Spock's (Leonard Nimoy) brain is stolen by an alien - which is largely accepted to be The Original Series' worst-ever episode.

Season three thankfully wasn't where TOS' legacy ended, though, as the show's success in syndication allowed Roddenberry to convince Paramount to commission the first Star Trek feature film some six years after its cancellation.