Fox’s The Passage started out as a very promising show, based on a horror novel trilogy which was highly acclaimed and very successful. The show centers around the life of Amy Bellafonte, who is humanity’s last hope of being saved from a vampire infection that threatens to destroy humanity.
This vampire thriller was canceled prematurely at the end of its first season, likely due to the show’s low ratings, which began at 5.2 million and fell weekly until reaching a low of just over 3 million by the end of the first season. Fox must have felt that the magic of the show was quickly wearing off, despite having a relatively strong start. It’s last episode, ‘Last Lesson’, was definitely a lesson in how not to premiere a show.
Pearson
Spinoffs are usually a risky move, as proven by the much maligned show Joey, an unsuccessful spinoff of the ultra-popular show Friends . USA Network had a taste of this phenomena when it decided to officially stop its experimental spinoff to the popular Suits legal drama show. Pearson was supposed to rise on the success of its parent show, but failed spectacularly after just 10 episodes. The show was based on one of the stars from Suits , Jessica Pearson, who is played by the talented and beautiful Gina Torres.
Unfortunately, this female-led show just couldn’t capture the same attention and interest that its parent show had. It’s been reported that Pearson had about half as many people watching the show as Suits, which is pretty bad when you consider that the show has just debuted and is still riding on the initial hype momentum. USA Network was quick to shut it down after finding out that it was one of the worst performing shows they had ever produced.
Jessica Jones
It seems that Marvel has really pulled the plug on the various MCU shows that have appeared on Netflix over the past few years. The studio has confirmed on February 18, 2019 that it was canceling the show Jessica Jones , meaning that its third season was going to be its last one. Jessica Jones’ premise is centered around Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) who is a former superhero that opens her own detective agency.
The show was highly acclaimed, mostly due to Ritter and her co-star David Tennant's excellent acting, but also due to its approach to various darker subjects, such as rape, assault and PTSD. Netflix didn't reveal its public viewership records at the time, although it's believed that the second season had about half the popularity of its predecessor. There is a rumor that Disney+ might continue the show, as well as other canceled Marvel properties, although that is yet to be confirmed.
Splitting Up Together
Splitting Up Together was a comedy show starring Jenna Fischer, Oliver Hudson, Bobby Lee, Diane Farr, Lindsay Price, and a few other lesser-known actors. The show follows a couple with three children who are going through a divorce which happens to reignite their marriage. It lasted for two seasons, with the first being only eight episodes long and the second having more than twice as many episodes.
ABC’s comedy show received mixed approval (you could also say that reviews were "split") and eventually the show was canceled by the network amidst a slew of cancellations by the broadcasting company. Splitting Up Together received a rating of 6.9 out of 10 on IMDb and was considered an OK show. The first season was about the couple getting divorced and the second was about the fallout of their one night stand. Its cancellation wasn't met with too much fuss from fans, who had mostly split up from the show themselves by then.
Sunnyside
NBC has had a fairly consistent trend of successful comedies in the past few years, which unfortunately seems to have ended with one of its leading comedy shows, Sunnyside . The series was marketed as a promising comedy starring the classic popular actor and comedian from Harold & Kumar , Kal Penn. Unfortunately, the show didn’t premiere to great ratings, as it suffered from a fairly unsuccessful September premiere.
Sunnyside reportedly earned the lowest ratings out of any freshman broadcast series in the past few years, and when the studio saw that figures weren’t picking up, they knew it was time to ax the show. The last few episodes will air and remain on NBC’s app and website, but it’s very unlikely that we’ll see another season. Perhaps the actor’s appeal began to fade over time, or perhaps the show just didn’t hit the right audiences.