Conventional wisdom says that “when one door closes, another door opens.” In the case of the 32 TV shows we’re about to discuss, that saying isn’t just blowing smoke. Rather, when these titles saw change or cancellation staring them down, shows like Futurama and Buffy The Vampire Slayer jumped ships -- and kept on sailing. Behold, these conquering heroes.
Futurama
Starting life as a Fox network original, Futurama’s shiny metal lifespan was initially cut short due to being canceled after four seasons. Years down the road, Comedy Central would revive Matt Groening’s irreverent fan favorite, and Hulu would later save it from cancelation as well. As a result, Planet Express’ doors were kept open… with some gaps of time, and a couple of direct to DVD movies in between.
The Great British Baking Show
The cozy comfort that is The Great British Baking Show switched channels in both the UK and the US, though not as often as its swapped co-hosts. In its home nation (where it’s still allowed to be called The Great British Bake Off), the program started at the BBC in 2010 and eventually moved to Channel 4 after seven seasons. Meanwhile, the rights to that show in the US were first with PBS in 2014 but are now scattered between The Roku Channel and Netflix.
Gilmore Girls
A show like Gilmore Girls doesn't always make a switch because of being canceled. Rather, in the final season of Amy Sherman-Palladino’s pop culture touchstone, The WB became The CW, after merging with fellow defunct network UPN. As for the miniseries Gilmore Girls: A Year in the LIfe, it did originate at Netflix but eventually received a homecoming of sorts when it aired on The CW in 2020.
Arrested Development
One of, if not the first network series revived through the powers of streaming, Arrested Development seemed to constantly struggle through its three seasons at Fox. And then, the good folks at Netflix revived what seemed to be one of the Internet’s favorite shows for two additional seasons. They were even nice enough to recut Season 4 into traditional episodes, once the initial character-centric installments were met with a less than stellar reception.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
The story of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s broadcast history is rather interesting to follow. Starting out as The WB’s big Tuesday night hit in 1997, it transferred to fellow upstart network UPN in 2001. After two more seasons, Buffy would go off the air…just a couple years shy of the merger that turned The WB and UPN into what we now know as The CW.
Cobra Kai
Hey folks: remember when YouTube had original series? That’s exactly how Cobra Kai started, as YouTube Red/Premium was where the Karate Kid legacy-quel first got its legs. After two seasons aired, and with YouTube apparently not interested in anything past season 4 (according to Deadline), Netflix opened its doors and let Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) bring his dojo over to its streaming paradise.
Last Man Standing
As Last Man Standing was sitting at six seasons, ABC canceled Tim Allen’s sitcom in 2017. That decision was supposedly due to some disputes between the network and the series’ production company, 20th Television. Which made it all the more interesting when Fox revived the series that it was already producing, for two more seasons.
Supernatural
Just how long was Supernatural on TV? Well… it started in 2006, as a show on The WB; and then became a flagship title of its next parent, The CW, once WB merged with fellow fledgling network UPN. So while you’d know the Winchester brothers’ adventures for playing on The CW for 14 of its 15 seasons, that first aired under the house that Michigan J. Frog built. How’s that for magic?
A.P. Bio
For its brief lifespan of four seasons, A.P. Bio kicked things off at NBC and was revived as a potential Peacock subscription driver and aired two more seasons as such. Alas, the streaming reaper came for the series in 2021, ending Whitlock High’s time on our screens all too early. And what’s even sadder is we never did learn about what happened to Devin (Jacob McCarthy) after he mysteriously disappeared following Season 1?
Family Matters
TGIF had a bit of an interesting shakeup in its later years, thanks to series like Family Matters and Step by Step defecting from its original home. Jumping from ABC after providing eight seasons of Urkel (Jaleel White) and his antics with the Winslow family, the former wrapped up on the CBS network with one final season. And depending on who you talk to, Season 9 is probably best forgotten by the world.
Archer
Archer’s 14-season run was both a hilarious parody of the James Bond movies, while also being funny and bittersweet in its own ways. While it was never canceled, and blew past the original plans to end in Season 10, a network shift did come after Season 7 aired in 2016. And that was thanks to FX Networks creating a new imprint for comedy and soccer programming, FXX.
Babylon 5
In the beginning, Babylon 5 was a syndicated TV show that, much like Star Trek: The Next Generation before it, had no singular network home. Distributed through the Prime Time Entertainment Network for its first four seasons, creator J. Michael Strazynski didn’t think the show would get a fifth season. With a series finale already filmed, TNT stepped in to grant one last round of episodes (and a new Season 4 finale), for 1998. And according to Strazynski’s blog post from when it all happened, “Sleeping In Light” would have played just as fine at the end of Season 4.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Here’s a fun scenario to ponder: what do you do when a series like Brooklyn Nine-Nine wants to keep existing, but home network Fox doesn’t want to go past Season 5? Well, you send the series to its true home: NBC! As the Andy Samberg-led ensemble was one of several shows saved from cancellation in 2018, the final three seasons could be chalked up to production company Universal Television saving one of its own.
Manifest
After Manifest’s wild Season 3 cliffhanger, the series’ cancellation by NBC left creator Jeff Rake, as well as the show’s fandom, all hoping for closure. While it wasn’t the full second half that Rake took to Twitter to mourn in 2021, streaming provider Netflix did step in for one final season, after finding great success with past seasons being available on its platform.
Columbo
Detective Colombo (Peter Falk) ran through two pilots and seven seasons on NBC, between 1968 and 1978, looking to solve his cases with “just one more thing” he needed to ask about. But when it came to his eponymous series’ own fate, it received “just” three more seasons on ABC, from 1989 to 2003.
Community
If it was up to NBC, Dan Harmon’s Community would have never gotten to the six seasons it called out for in its own universe. With that final, prophecy-fulfilling season airing on the now defunct Yahoo! Screen platform, part of a prophecy, that involves "a movie," has been fulfilled.
Everybody Hates Chris
With Chris Rock’s semi-autobiographical sitcom Everybody Hates Chris, the network shift came from a natural place: a merger. Beginning its life in 2005 on UPN, the sitcom Rock co-created with Ali LeRoi would become an original series on The CW in the 2006-2007 TV season. It would continue to air until 2009, as it would then be canceled after its fourth season.
The Expanse
The Expanse came to an end after six seasons, with the first three airing on Syfy and the last batch going to Amazon’s Prime Video platform. But apparently, in an interview with Polygon, authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (collectively known as James S.A. Corey),said they don’t even see the show as cancelled, but rather “paused” after Season 6. If a show can be renewed after a fan campaign draws in the likes of Wil Wheaton, George R.R. Martin, and Patton Oswalt, who are we to doubt there’s still gas in the tank?
American Dad!
Fox ran Seth MacFarlane’s topically inclined animated comedy, American Dad!, for 11 seasons, before pulling the plug on the Family Guy originator’s co-creation with Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman in 2013. However, it didn’t take long for cable station TBS, which had been airing reruns for some time, to snag itself a new original program. So just under a month after the series “ended” on Fox, it came roaring back to life in its second healthy home.
Friday Night Lights
Most people probably remember Friday Night LIghts as an NBC series, and considering its first two seasons aired there, that would make sense. However, if we’re going by season count, you’d technically call Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton’s ensemble drama a 101 Network series; thanks to the last three of its five seasons airing on that platform between 2008 and 2011.
The Critic
For a two-season wonder like The Critic, you’d think it would have been easy to keep it in one place for the whole run. That couldn’t have been further from the truth, as the first season aired on ABC in 1994, followed by the second season going to Fox in 1995. It’s something that would be joked about in the Jon Lovitz’ comedy’s third and final revival, as a series of webisodes on AtomFilms/Shockwave distributed between 2000 and 2001.
Matlock
Lawyer Ben Matlock (Andy Griffith) broke a lot of cases over six seasons on NBC, between 1986 and 1992. And before anyone could ask if we’d see Ben again, the fall of that very last year saw Matlock jumping over to ABC, for its final three seasons. While cast members may have changed, the iconic theme song and the public’s love for this series did not.
JAG
Here’s something fun to consider: JAG technically has two network shifts. The major one saw David James Elliott’s Lt. Harmon Rabb, Jr. go from NBC to CBS, right after Season 1’s conclusion in 1996. At its second home, the series would run for nine more seasons and spawn the hit spinoff NCIS; which is basically the procedural world’s version of Cheers and Frasier. However, the 22nd episode of Season 1, the true season finale “Skeleton Crew,” wouldn’t air on TV until 1999 on the USA Network.
Longmire
Neo-noir/western detective series Longmire began its life as a pretty popular title on the A&E Network back in 2014.. Three seasons in, despite being a strong performer, the cable channel axed the Robert Taylor-starring series, with no rhyme or reason. Of course, that didn’t stop Netflix from reviving the series, giving it another three seasons that ran from 2015 until its second and final cancellation in 2017.
Lucifer
After three seasons, and a finale that was specifically designed to keep the show running, Lucifer was canceled due to a “pretty narrow” audience. That, and the series was made by an outside studio, which only made the decision apparently clearer. It was Fox’s loss though, as Netflix not only brought Tom Ellis’ demonically good time back from the grave,but the streamer gave it three more seasons to finish up.
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Was it ever important for Mystery Science Theater 3000 to stay at one network? Not totally, though there were some hiccups in how films were chosen in later seasons because of such switches. Starting life in 1988 as a public access show for KTMA-TV, MST3K would move to Comedy Central for the bulk of its run between 1989 and 1996. One last broadcast move would happen in 1997, giving this show its final TV-bound home… before it went to Netflix for two seasons between 2017 and 2018, and then to its own indie platform, The Gizmoplex, in 2022.
One Day At A Time
The reboot of Whitney Blake and Allan Manings’ sitcom, One Day at a Time, gave the world a new perspective on a very familiar formula. This Latinx-flavored version only lasted for four seasons sadly, with three of those seasons streaming on Netflix. After being canceled by the big red streamer in 2019, the series would be revived by Pop TV for one final abbreviated season, which aired in 2020.
Girls5Eva
Girls5Eva was a series that had a pedigree that seemed destined to last more than two seasons at Peacock. Yet the Tina Fey co-created/Sara Barellies-led ensemble found itself out the door after Season 2 ended. Though that’s not where the music stopped, as Netflix resurrected the show, proving that the cancellation reaper doesn’t always have the last word.
Doug
Most people remember Doug as a four-season Nicktoon that delved into the inner mind of Doug Funnie (Billy West) as he navigated his teenage years of crushes and bullies. But if you’re a true die-hard, then you, of course, remember Disney’s Doug…It was Doug but an ABC-tweaked incarnation that ran as part of the One Saturday Morning block.
Cougar Town
Over four seasons of Courteney Cox’s ensemble sitcom Cougar Town, there were things that could change and things that couldn’t. While co-creator Bill Lawrence’s Twitter crusade to rename the show never came to be, the former ABC series eventually became a TBS original in the back half of its life span. And no, the network change didn’t help the case to rename the series at all.
Damages
Through 2007 to 2011, FX had a hit legal drama on its hand with Damages, starring Glenn Close and Rose Byrne. When it came to the end of the third season, EW reported that the costs of the series weren’t worth the viewership to the network. Which lead The 101 Network to enter talks and eventually pick up the series, for its final two seasons.
Clueless
Can one network alone hold the charisma of Cher Horowitz (Rachel Blanchard)? As if! While original network ABC wasn’t sold on Clueless until reruns had proven them wrong, UPN kept the series adaptation of the ‘90s movie classic going for another two seasons. If only ABC had taken a little more time to feel things out.
Whether it’s because of cost issues, audience demand, or just good old-fashioned mergers, sometimes you’ve got to move to another network to keep the party going. These series did just that, and for better or worse, fans got more time to hang out with some of their favorite TV characters as a result.
