Firefly. Literally any other network.
this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2025
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Literally no other network would have let it run as long as 11 episodes. FOX tried everything to make it work because they were in the Whedon business. The ratings were super low for the time.
Firefly. 😭
🍃
I only watched the first season of Netflix's The Witcher, but I feel like if HBO made it it could've been the next Game of Thrones
Overhyped, meandering, and lacking a cohesive vision? I dont see how that would be an improvement.
Witcher was fucked before they even started shooting, because the writing team was picked based on the popularity of their recent works, and the executives who hired them never actually asked them what they thought of the original books. Turns out the writers completely hated the books, and picked chapters totally out if order to adapt into episodes.
And the first thing they did was to remove all humour. Dumbasses.
Raised by Wolves. Amazing show, but it was cancelled after two seasons. Probably would have had a better run on Apple+.
I always thought sliders, could have been so much better if the studio hadn't instantly started interfering before it could even establish it's self.
I kinda feel like Revolution may have done better on SyFy or FX rather than NBC. Was canceled after the second season.
Freaks and Geeks
Maybe. I mean look at “My So Called Life” — different network, same target audience and quality, same fate.
Scavenger’s Reign and Infinity Train died via HBO Max. I think these shows would fit so well in Apple’s growing sci-fi portfolio.
+1, Apple seems to have a niche with sci-fi.
Any show written for smart people, then aired on fox.
Any show on The CW, past or present, would be handled better by just about any other network
There are a number of network tv shows that could do a lot better if they were under a premium network and didn't have their hands tied, storywise.
Someone already mentioned Revolution, which was the first thing I thought of. So I'll go with another one that came out around the same time that seriously needed to be somewhere where it could be more mature; Under the Dome.
The one that sticks out to me the most is not a TV show, but the two adaptations of the "The Stand". That should never have been produced by a network. It needed the freedom to go dark when necessary.
Under the Dome very nearly transcended its shittyness, but only with some outside context.
It wouldn't be any fun to re-watch I expect, but at the time it was live, the weekly Reddit discussion threads trying to predict the next atrociously dumb stunt the writers would pull (and then somehow still being surprised when they came up with something even worse) made it worthwhile.
It was for sure some hot garbage though, the ham-fisted Microsoft Surface product placement was a particular "highlight", but just bad in general.
Anything on Amazon.
Pantheon. Holy heck, don't even get me started, but its 'release' on AMC was a crime against humanity.
...I've always thought Avatar was on the wrong network. ATLA was literally about ethnic genocide, but it never really got to confront the horror bluntly or get messy (which I guess the adaptation is trying to get at). LoK spun some dark, complex threads on politics and PTSD, but there just wasn't enough screen time to tug on them between 'kid stuff' filler.
I wouldn't call them failures though. They're two of the best series ever.
Recently re-watched Boss (2011). Excellent show, in the sense that it contains gratuitous violence and nudity, cancelled after 2 seasons...
...because it was on Starz.
Nothing against Starz, but this was made in an era where HBO or Showtime were the channels of choice for most cable subscribers. Saying a show had low ratings on Starz is a bit redundant.
It had low ratings even for Starz.
The Starlost needs a remake. Great premise, dollar store execution.
What they wanted:
Foreseeing the destruction of Earth, humanity builds a multi-generational starship called Earthship Ark, 50 miles (80 km) wide and 200 miles (320 km) long. The ship contains dozens of biospheres, each kilometres across and housing people of different cultures. Their goal is to find and seed a new world of a distant star.
In 2385, more than 100 years into the voyage, an unexplained accident occurs, and the ship goes into emergency mode in which each biosphere is sealed off from the others.
Centuries after its original launch, most of the descendants of the original crew and colonists are unaware that they are even aboard a spaceship.
How it went:
Unable to sell The Starlost for prime time, [20th Century Fox television producer Robert] Kline decided to pursue a low budget approach and produce it for syndication. By May, Kline had sold the idea to 48 NBC stations and the Canadian CTV network.
Originally, the show was to be filmed with a special effects camera system developed by Doug Trumbull called Magicam. ... The technology did not work reliably, however. In the end, simple blue screen effects were used, which forced static camera shots. ... The failure of the Magicam system was a major blow, as the Canadian studio space that had been rented was too small to build the required sets. In the end, partial sets were built, but the lack of space hampered production.
As the filming went on, [the writer Harlan] Ellison grew disenchanted with the budget cuts, details that were changed, and what he characterized as a progressive dumbing down of the story. ... Ellison broke with the project before the airing of its first episode.
Have you seen silo? Very similar, but a silo, not a spaceship. It’s a great show.
I like Silo.