10 Most Disappointing Cancellations of 2022 So Far

More than 80 shows have been lost to the chopping block already this year. While some will be swiftly forgotten, some of them really sting, canceled before their time or at the height of their brilliance. Here are 10 canceled shows we’ll be thinking about long after they have officially shown their last episode:

The Baby-Sitters Club (Netflix)

An adaptation of the classic children’s novels of the same name by author Ann M. Martin, The Baby-Sitters Club is perhaps the youngest-targeted show on this list. Following a group of middle-schoolers who form a club to make money by babysitting kids in the neighborhood. The series starred Sophie Grace as Kristy Thomas, Momona Tamada as Claudia Kishi, Shay Rudolph as Stacey McGill, Malia Baker as Mary Anne Spier, Kyndra Sanchez as Dawn Schafer (replacing Xochitl Gomez in season two), Vivian Watson as Mallory Pike and Anais Lee as Jesse Ramsey. Alicia Silverstone plays Kristy’s mother, Elizabeth, and Mark Feuerstein plays Elizabeth’s fiancé and later husband, Watson Brewer.

What made the books and this show so wonderful was how it managed to be relevant and honest without feeling too earnest. It dealt with issues that young girls are faced with all the time while growing up – medical issues like Stacy’s diabetes, death of a loved one like Claudia’s grandmother, blended families like Kristy with her mother’s second marriage, and first crushes like Mary Anne’s crush on Logan. The heart of the show is the girls’ friendships, something that TV in general could have more of.

Charmed (The CW)

When their mother dies, Mel and Maggie Vera discover that they have a long-lost sister, Macy, and a magical legacy as the Charmed Ones, the most powerful trio of good witches of their generation. The sisters dig into the many secrets their mother kept and discover a magical world full of witches, demons, ghosts, whitelighters, and more. As they learn to use their magic, they bond as sisters and fight to protect innocent witches from demons. At the end of season three, the sisters face a crushing loss – Macy sacrifices herself to stop the Whispering Evil. The Power of Three seems to be broken. As Maggie and Mel mourn the sister they’ve only just found, they discover Michaela “Kaela” Danso who seems to be a new Charmed One. Just as there seems to be some hope of repairing the Power of Three, the magical world, which is full of magical beings well beyond the witches and demons the sisters have primarily been dealing with, turns on them.

While this reboot never reached the height of its predecessor, it had just reached a pivotal point in its world-building by opening the door to the rest of the magical community. Some of the original series’ most impactful stories involved the series dealing with the death of the oldest sister, Prue Halliwell (Shannon Doherty). The episode where Piper (Holly Marie Combs) is sobbing over Prue’s grave after her grief nearly turns her into a banshee is a scene that still sticks with me all these years later. The shifting dynamics as Piper went from being the middle sister and peacemaker to the older sister and the leader were also fascinating to watch. Unfortunately the reboot has only just started to dig into these new relationships. It was setting itself up for some exciting storylines that will never be told now.

Dollface (Hulu)

After breaking up with her boyfriend of five years, Jules (Kat Dennings) realized that she had no friends to turn to because she had ignoring them while in a relationship. She worked hard to rebuild her female friend group – Stella (Shay Mitchell), Madison (Brenda Song) and Izzy (Esther Povitsky). Season 2, set in a post-pandemic world, saw Jules and co. struggle to balance life, work, and love with their friendships.

There was a quirky side to this show that involved Jules periodically daydreaming/hallucinating a talking, human-sized cat that helped her work through her problems that was certainly unique and unexpected, though perhaps not seen as a strength by all. The place where this show really shined was in places where it let the characters explore themselves and expand their horizons. Season 2 gave a lot of opportunity for this – Stella, known for being a carefree partier looks to what she wants in a career and relationship, control freak Madison attempts to create her own company after losing her job, Izzy is forced to confront her insecurities and accept love, and Jules seeks to find her passion. Unfortunately there we won’t see them figure it out.

The Endgame (NBC)

A unique heist show that focuses less on the the heists and more on stopping them and uncovering their motivation, The Endgame‘s first season showed great promise. When international arms dealer and criminal mastermind Elena Federova (Morena Baccarin) is arrested, she is still holding all the cards – while in custody, she orchestrates seven simultaneous bank heists across New York City, including the Federal Reserve. As FBI Agent Val Turner (Ryan Michelle Bathé) attempts to decipher Federova’s cryptic taunts and clues, she uncovers a conspiracy that could send the country reeling.

There is a level of intricacy and intrigue in this show that I have not seen a while. The show manages to simultaneously make Federova the villain while also someone to root for. She is rooting out corruption, fighting for her family, being oddly vulnerable about her difficult history. These are not things we expect from people who take people hostage and run criminal empires. The show ended on a cliffhanger as Federova was unexpectedly forced to turn to Turner for help.

Good Sam (CBS)

When Dr. Rob “Griff” Griffith (Jason Isaacs) ends up in a coma, his daughter, Dr. Samantha Griffith (Sophia Bush) is given the temporary role of Chief of Surgery at Lakeshore Sentinel Hospital. Though she accepts the role reluctantly, she grows into it and finds that she is actually quite good at it. Those working for her appreciate her more positive, encouraging style. But when her father wakes up, her position is called into question. Sam must supervise him to ensure he is ready to resume performing surgeries while vying with him for the Chief position. 

While there were a lot of logical flaws to the series (like how Sam was ever qualified to be Chief of Surgery in the first place), Bush is as charming as ever and the show did a good job establishing the various relationships and dramas surrounding them. What keeps the show interesting are the family dynamics (father and daughter working together and competing, Sam’s mother and Griff’s ex-wife is also the hospital’s Chief Medicine Officer) and how they impact their jobs. This series felt like it had potential and room to grow, if only it had been given the chance.

Legacies (The CW)

A spin-off of a spin-off, Legacies follows Hope Mikaelson (Danielle Rose Russell), the daughter of Original Vampire Klaus Mikaelson and the world’s only tribrid (vampire, werewolf, and witch), who attends The Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted in Mystic Falls. The school is designed to help young vampires, werewolves, and witches (and eventually other types of magical beings) learn to control their abilities in a safe environment. Set in the same world as The Vampire Diaries and a direct sequel to its spin-off The Originals, the tone of Legacies diverges somewhat from its predecessors. It has more of a “monster of the week” format, rather than fast-moving, overarching stories, and had essentially the same main villain for three seasons. 

While this show left something to be desired in the wake of its more complex predecessors, the most recent season introduced new villains and a series of redemption stories. Hope, every the team leader and hero, turns off her humanity (something vampires can do when their emotions are too overwhelming) and commits horrific acts against those she loves, including putting her father-figure Dr. Alaric Saltzmann into a coma, killing (and accidentally turning) Lizzie Saltzmann, and threatening and endangering her friends. Though Hope regains her humanity and is about to face off against literal gods, we will have little time to see how she wrestles with the guilt of her actions.

Love, Victor (Hulu)

In this spin-off of the movie Love, Simon, Victor Salazar (Michael Cimino) is starting at a new school, Creekwood High School. If being the new kid isn’t tough enough, Victor begins to question his sexuality. Reaching out to Simon Spier (Nick Robinson reprises his role from the movie) for how to navigate coming out and accepting himself. While it seems like the act of coming out is his biggest problem, once he does so, his life is complicated by his parents’ less-than-supportive reactions.

There was some controversy surrounding this series when Disney opted to have it be a Hulu original series instead of a Disney+ series. While nearly everything that happens would easily fit into Disney, there were a few moments where you could understand why it might not have fit on a more child-focused network. Then again, some of Marvel is questionably appropriate as well, so that argument only goes so far, which is probably why Love, Victor is coming to Disney+ this year. The streaming service appears to be trying to broaden its appeal by including more shows that target adults.

While we won’t get to follow Victor for much longer, we will at least get a final season with him before we have to say goodbye for good.

Star Trek: Picard (Paramount+)

Star Trek: Picard follows legendary retired general Jean-Luc Picard (Sir Patrick Stewart) as he deals with new threats and past pain. When a young woman being hunted by assassins comes to visit him, and is killed in front of him, Picard is pulled into a mystery surrounding his old friend android Lieutenant Commander Data. This sends him on a journey to investigate the truth of Starfleet’s synthetics ban. Season 2 sees Picard confronted by Q as he journeys through space and time fighting the Borg to…(SPOILER ALERT) save his romantic life.

As someone who grew up on Star Trek: Voyager, any chance to get an update on any of the crew is always welcome. But Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine has always been a favorite (I have always been a sucker for a goof redemption story or a robot discovers their humanity story) so seeing her post-Voyager has been a real treat. Both Picard and Seven have been assimilated by the Borg, Picard near the end of his Starfleet career and Seven as a child, which makes the Borg threat particularly meaningful, though I would have liked to see Seven’s emotional turmoil around her past trauma more (it is clear that her time in the Alpha Quadrant has not been easy.

This series is much darker than the Star Trek shows that aired on broadcast TV. One of its most interesting aspects of the series is that it forces us to questions aspects of the United Federation of Planets and Starfleet, which are typically held up as having the highest ethics and morals. We will get a third and final season of Picard, but luckily once this goes off the air there will still be a great deal of Star Trek to watch.

Pivoting (FOX)

Eliza Coupe, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Maggie Q play Amy, Jodie, and Sarah, three friends who, reeling from the death of a close friend, decide to re-examine their lives and make big changes. Amy, who runs a popular cooking show, realizes that she is an absentee mother and decides to be more present with her children. Jodie finds her marriage unfulfilling and seeks joy elsewhere. Sarah quits her stressful job as a surgeon for a low-pressure job as a grocery store worker.

Losing this show hurt a lot because it might have been the best new comedy in a long while. Maggie Q, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Eliza Coupe form a lovable, dysfunctional trio that you root for even, questionable life choices and all. The series keeps the memory of their departed friend Colleen alive and present, a feat considering that we did not met her before she passed.

One of the things I will most miss are the interactions between Amy and her husband, Henry (Tommy Dewey). Henry’s calm support is such a balance for Amy’s snark. It is one of the healthiest relationships I can remember seeing on a sitcom (after Leslie Knope and Ben Wyatt from Parks and Recreation and Lily Aldrin and Marshall Eriksen from How I Met Your Mother).

Queens (ABC)

If you have been missing the world of rap and hip hop since Empire went off the air in 2020, this show scratched that musical itch. Eve, Naturi Naughton, Nadine Velazquez, and Brandy star as Brianna, Naomi, Jill, and Valeria members of the popular ’90s rap and hip-hop group, “Nasty Bitches.” When the group falls apart, the women go their separate ways, only to reunite twenty years later for an attempt to reclaim their former glory. Now in their forties, the women rename themselves “Queens” and set out to not just recapture their fame but to reshape the music industry by amplifying artists’ voices.

I came away from this show’s pilot wondering how I never knew that Brandy could rap. Obviously I knew she could since The Boy is Mine and Have You Ever were a couple of favorites back in my middle school years, but somehow I never got the memo about her rapping. Eve is obviously a known entity in the rap/hip-hop scene as well, but I was impressed with Naturi Naughton and Nadine Velazquez who easily held their own against their more well-known co-stars. The biggest knock against the show was Eve being missing for the back half of the season (because she was on maternity leave), but she was poised to return for the next season, which we unfortunately never get to see.

What shows are you going to miss the most?

Photo: (L-R) Naturi Naughton as Jill, Eve as Brianna, Brandy as Naomi, and Nadine Velazquez as Valeria on Queens. Courtesy of ABC.