Having your favorite TV show go off the air can be a traumatic experience. But it’s even worse when series are blindsided by a cancellation, leaving their creators unable to rewrite a final episode that ties everything together.
We’ve lost a lot of great shows over the years — and plenty more that we were happy to see go — but here are some of the biggest series that left fans with more questions than answers.
Pushing Daisies
While critics were head-over-heels for ABC’s Pushing Daisies, the fantasy series failed to ever find a big enough audience to keep it alive. The show, about a man named Ned (Lee Pace) who can bring things back from the dead, was given a shortened second season. There was a delay in airing the final three episodes, however, and by the time they did reach our TVs, fans weren’t fulfilled by the way things wrapped up. Unanswered questions, like whether or not Ned ever told Olive (Kristin Chenoweth) about his gift, still haunt superfans to this day.
The Tomorrow People
Fans of The Tomorrow People, the CW show about humans with mutant powers, always knew that protagonist Stephen Jameson (Robbie Amell) had unique abilities that were yet to be revealed. But in the Season 1 finale, we discovered that he is able to reverse time, using the power to save Cara (Peyton List) after she was fatally shot. But what the reveal meant for Stephen, we’ll sadly never know, as the show did not return for a second season.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Despite a built-in fanbase for the franchise, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles struggled to pull in ratings when it premiered on FOX in 2008. The second season finale ended up being the series finale, which found John Henry, Weaver, and John Connor traveling to the future where no one had heard of Connor. What was meant to set up an exciting third season instead left fans desperate for closure.
Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
For four seasons, fans tuned in to watch Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher play the titular roles in ABC’s Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. A fifth season was announced, but the network got spooked by falling ratings and changed its mind at the last minute. That meant the series ended on the cliffhanger at the end of Season 4, which featured Lois and Clark finding a baby with a red cape and a Superman symbol on it. Was the child a relative of theirs from the future? We’ll sadly never know.
Heroes
Beginning in 2006, Heroes ran for four seasons on NBC and garnered a relatively big fanbase. So no one saw it coming when the show was abruptly canceled ahead of Season 5. The fourth season ended with Clair Bennet publicly revealing her superpower abilities, but fans were never able to learn how the revelation affected the other characters. NBC released Heroes Reborn in 2015 to appease viewers, but the series didn’t feature the original stars or tie up loose ends.
Angel
The fifth season of Angel, the spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, killed off a bunch of main characters in its finale as a way to set up an exciting Season 6. But, alas, that final image of Angel swinging his sword at the camera lens after being overrun by demons is the last fans ever got to see of the character. Creator Joss Whedon has since spoken out about the ending, saying that although it was meant to be a cliffhanger, it still works as a “final statement” for the series.
Freaks and Geeks
Freaks and Geeks was canceled after one season that premiered in 1999, and fans are still not over it. The show was adored by critics and audiences alike and TV Guide ranked it as number one in their list of series that were canceled too soon. The beloved NBC series set up storylines for all of its characters, played by future stars like James Franco, Seth Rogen, and Jason Segel, but fans were instead forced to imagine what might have happened to the ’80s high school students.
