The Real Reason These TV Shows Were Canceled In 2021

As the year 2021 dawned, the world was still in the midst of the deadly coronavirus pandemic. Billions of people and nearly every industry on Earth adjusted throughout 2020, including the world of television. Shutdowns and expensive precautionary measures meant to slow the spread of COVID-19 led to numerous TV show cancelations, delays, and reworkings, which carried over into 2021. 

However, television was already in flux, what with the continued advent of streaming services and rise of new delivery methods. All these factors culminated in some shocking and surprising cancelations of popular, important, and vital TV series across broadcast, cable, and online providers. And on top of all that, the regular reasons for shows ending were also in play — stars ready to move on, fans losing interest, or creators deciding they'd told the story they set out to tell. 

Updated on November 22, 2021: Sadly, TV shows are canceled all the time, and we've updated this list to keep you informed on which series — whether they're beloved, reviled, or completely ignored — are leaving the airwaves. From comedies to thrillers, these TV series were all canceled in 2021.

In 2016, HBO debuted "Insecure," starring co-creator Issa Rae as Issa Dee, a woman in her late twenties trying to balance all the disparate threads in her life while searching for fulfillment and purpose. When the series begins, Issa works at a Los Angeles nonprofit designed to help young students of color succeed while also maintaining her intense connection with old friend Molly (Yvonne Orji) and slowly, maybe, emerging from a stale relationship with boyfriend Lawrence (Jay Ellis). Acclaimed for being a thoughtful and vital look at 21st century life for African-American women, "Insecure" made stars out of Rae and Orji and scored an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series.

"Insecure" was a fully fleshed-out, grander realization of "Awkward Black Girl," Rae's confessional YouTube series from the 2010s. Along with co-creator Larry Wilmore, Rae mapped out a show designed to tell a finite story about a certain period in the life of her character and her social circle. "We always planned to tell this story through five seasons," Rae told Deadline. HBO renewed the series for its fifth season in May 2020, which Rae confirmed in January 2021 would be its last.

OWN's "The Haves and the Have Nots" is a good old-fashioned 1980s-style, scandal-free, family drama-loaded primetime soap, in the vein of "Dallas" or "Dynasty." Set in the beautiful and moneyed city of Savannah, Georgia, the story centers in part on the locally dominant Cryers and Harringtons, who have abundant wealth and resources at their disposal. Those are the "haves," while the "have nots" are the Youngs, a working-class family led by single mother Hanna (Crystal Fox), who works in the home of the Cryers. There's plenty of intrigue with the servants, as well as when the two sides of the socioeconomic coin interact, making for a show that feels like a modern-day "Downton Abbey."

The series comes from the mind of prolific show creator and producer Tyler Perry. In 2017, he signed a deal to make scripted series for Oprah Winfrey's OWN channel. The first show under that deal was "The Haves and the Have Nots," OWNS's first scripted series, which drew an average of three million viewers — huge for the sometimes struggling OWN. After a run of eight years and nearly 200 episodes, "The Haves and the Have Nots" will end its run in May 2021, the last vestige of Perry's OWN contract. He moved on from the channel in 2017, signing a development deal to make shows for Viacom outlets, including BET. The end of his original OWN show marks a clean, contractual break with Perry's former creative home.

The "NCIS" format — in which a team of elite, highly-trained Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents investigate and solve naval-related crimes — is a premise that keeps on giving. Since 2003, the franchise has generated more than 400 episodes of Washington, D.C.-based "NCIS," nearly 300 of spinoff "NCIS: Los Angeles," and about 150 of "NCIS: New Orleans," starring veteran TV actor Scott Bakula as team leader Supervisory Special Agent Dwayne Cassius Pride. This iteration of the crime procedural saga hit CBS in 2014, and at one point, ranked among the top 10 most watched shows on TV.

But that was years ago. In February 2021, CBS announced that "NCIS: New Orleans" would end at the conclusion of its current season, its seventh. The cancelation comes in part due to falling viewership. In the 2020-21 season, no CBS drama suffered a bigger drop than "NCIS: New Orleans," which also loses 750,000 viewers from its lead-in show, "NCIS: Los Angeles," and accumulates a total draw of about half of the original "NCIS." It especially didn't make sense for CBS to keep making new episodes of the New Orleans series because it didn't generate big money in reruns and on streaming, the way the other two "NCIS" shows do. Meanwhile, "NCIS: New Orleans" showrunners Jan Nash and Christopher have already agreed to take over a potential new CBS drama ... "NCIS: Hawaii."

"Wynnona Earp" is one of the wildest and most original TV series in recent memory. The show depicts the adventures of the modern-day descendant (Melanie Scrofano) of strong-armed Old West lawman Wyatt Earp, who returns to her Rocky Mountains hometown (not coincidentally named Purgatory) where she does battle with "revenants" — reincarnated supernatural monster versions of the 19th century scofflaws her great-great-grandfather killed in the line of duty.

The show debuted in the U.S. on Spike in 2016, and after three seasons moved to SyFy for Season 4. That network was supposed to air a fifth season before reversing course in February 2021, announcing that the imminent fourth run would be the last for "Wynnona Earp." It's a near miracle that those episodes were even finished. Production company IDW ran out of money, which delayed filming for almost a year. SyFy agreed to foot the bill, but then the pandemic led to a shutdown shortly after filming began. And then, SyFy's parent company, NBCUniversal, restructured its programming strategy, deciding to emphasize streaming content instead of cable network originals.

Celebrated and immensely popular fantasy author Neil Gaiman published one of his masterworks in 2001, the novel "American Gods." The story depicts the ancient mythological and religious deities of Europe, Africa, and Asia brought to the United States over centuries of immigration and diaspora, struggling to stay alive as their adherents die out and also waging a battle with powerful "new gods" like Media and the technology allegory Technical Boy. It's a complicated, heady brew, and it was often held up as an example of an "unfilmable" work, a novel impossible to reasonably adapt to film. 

And yet, in 2017, Starz brought "American Gods" to the screen — the small screen, in the form of a continuing weekly series in the hands of screenwriter Michael Green ("Logan," "Blade Runner 2049") and Bryan Fuller ("Pushing Daisies," "Dead Like Me," "Hannibal"). However, "American Gods" experienced a lot of backstage issues. Toward the end of the show's first season, showrunners Green and Fuller departed, unable to resolve creative differences with Starz executives, and cast members Kristin Chenoweth and Gillian Anderson followed them out the door. More showrunners came and went, actors reportedly rewrote their own scripts to improve them, and then cast member Orlando Jones was fired, which he believes was racially motivated.

Starz ended the whole thing in March 2021, announcing that the already-aired third season — which ended with a cliffhanger — would be the show's last. The network added that a finale movie or miniseries in the future was a possibility.

In the midst of the great mid-2010s reboot and revival craze that returned everything from "Twin Peaks" to "Murphy Brown" to television, CBS ordered a new version of "MacGyver." The original show premiered in 1985, and this innovative action series focused on a brilliant secret agent (Richard Dean Anderson) whose aversion to firearms meant he had to use his wits and whatever items he could find to save the day, escape danger, and beat the bad guys. On the new "MacGyver," which debuted in 2016, Lucas Till played the titular role, only his version was younger and more charming of a rogue.

"MacGyver" was a top 30 hit in its first year, but by its fifth — and ultimately final – season, it ranked #10 in viewership of CBS' 14 dramas. Prior to the season, CBS fired executive producer Peter M. Lenkov for fostering a difficult work environment, bolstered by allegations from Till in Vanity Fair that he'd been verbally abused and body-shamed on set to the degree that he'd felt suicidal. And CBS was also involved in a "MacGyver" lawsuit. In December 2018, the rights holders of the original "MacGyver" sued over unpaid royalties generated by the new series. Just before canceling the show, CBS released a statement (via Deadline) calling out the suit for "fatal, incurable deficiencies."

If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.

It's a testament to the quality and universality of Sherlock Holmes that more than 130 years after the character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made his literary debut, filmmakers and screenwriters are still coming up with new and innovative ways to present and interpret the world of brilliant, deductive detective. 

And in March 2021, the eight-episode first season of "The Irregulars" hit Netflix, detailing the adventures of the scrappy, streetwise, 19th-century London ragamuffins who act as helpers and informants for Holmes. Out of the gate, "The Irregulars" was a major hit, ranking at one point as the most-watched show on streaming, with viewers watching 643 million minutes' worth and spending 18 straight days in Netflix's top 10. 

Why Netflix decided against identifying "The Irregulars" as a show it could renew is a mystery only Sherlock Holmes himself could solve. Not only was "The Irregulars" a bona fide smash, but the streaming service gave no reason for its April 2021 decision.

"Prodigal Son" was a dark crime procedural, but it offered a twist on the enduring format. A riff on "The Silence of the Lambs," the series centered on New York Police Department criminal profiler Malcolm Bright (Tom Payne), who got into the minds of suspects by consulting a notorious, captured serial killer — Martin Whitly, aka the Surgeon ... aka Bright's father (Michael Sheen). "Prodigal Son" was one part cat-and-mouse game, one part unconventional father-son-reconnecting drama.

In May 2021, TVLine reported that Fox had decided against ordering a third season of "Prodigal Son," meaning that its already shot and edited second-season finale would serve as a series capper. According to a Fox insider, executives really liked the show and wanted to make it work, but its ratings were so low that it wouldn't make economic sense to do so. "Prodigal Son" viewership numbers fell nearly 40 percent in its second season, and it was the least-watched drama still standing on the Fox schedule.

In 2003, amidst the traditionally combative, confrontational, and personal problems-oriented world of daytime talk programs, viewers were treated to the "The Ellen DeGeneres Show." The titular host — the dry and deadpan comedian best known for the '90s sitcom "Ellen" — injected late-night style fun into her afternoon show, engaging in light-hearted interviews with celebrities (when she wasn't pranking them), as well as recognizing and rewarding local heroes and then dancing through every spare moment.

In May 2021, DeGeneres told The Hollywood Reporter that she would shut down "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" when her contract to host the series ended in 2022. The main reason? It no longer thrilled her. "When you're a creative person, you constantly need to be challenged," DeGeneres said, "and as great as this show is, and as fun as it is, it's just not a challenge anymore." DeGeneres may also be bailing on a sinking TV ship. Ratings had fallen by nearly half from 2020 to 2021, in the wake of allegations and revelations that "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" was a workplace fraught with hostility and misbehavior, according to Entertainment Weekly.

Walton Goggins, an actor with a moderate but cult following due to his work on quirky projects like "Justified" and "The Righteous Gemstones," headed to CBS in 2019 to make a romantic comedy. On "The Unicorn," Goggins portrayed Wade, a successful small business owner and widowed single father who, at the urging of his well-meaning friend group, decides he's ready to start dating again. In his North Carolina community, he comes to be known as a "unicorn" because he's evidently everything a single woman could want — he's unattached but also a nice guy and a good dad.

In its second season on CBS, ratings for "The Unicorn" dropped significantly from where they'd been in Season 1. In 2019-2020, the sitcom averaged just over 7 million viewers and was the second most popular new comedy of the year on broadcast TV (behind "Bob Hearts Abishola"). In 2020-2021, "The Unicorn" attracted just over 5 million people and was the lowest-viewed scripted series in CBS primetime, prompting the network to get rid of it in May 2021.

"Call Your Mother" was created by Kari Lizer, the TV veteran behind the Julia Louis-Dreyfus hit "The New Adventures of Old Christine," and it was a studio-shot, multi-camera, laugh track-sweetened, old-fashioned sitcom. It marked a return to a regular, continuing series for Kyra Sedgwick since her Emmy-winning tenure on "The Closer" ended in 2012. Here, Sedgwick played Jean Raines, an unhappy empty-nester who solves her loneliness problem by aggressively meddling in the lives of her adult children.

"Call Your Mother" had a brief and tough life. In January 2020, ABC ordered a pilot for the series, then called "My Village." That sample episode, upon which ABC could've decided whether or not to order a full season, was never produced, and ABC gave a series order in May 2020 in the midst of the COVD-19 pandemic and subsequent production shutdowns. Debuting on ABC in January 2021, episodes of "Call Your Mother" aired infrequently, with two or more weeks sometimes separating broadcasts. After Episode 11 of a 13-episode season aired to very low viewership, ABC canceled the sitcom.

In the wake of superhero franchises taking over the world of movies, TV producers have responded with small-screen shows examining the burdens and psychological ramifications that superheroes would have to face after years of fighting crime and living lives as special and privileged individuals. And along with "Watchmen" and "Invincible," "Jupiter's Legacy" was among the more promising entries in this sub-genre of gritty superhero revisionism. Based on a comic series by Mark Millar, the Netflix show concerned the actions of a team of superheroes trying to save the world (and their own souls) as they grappled with the example set forth by their parents — the first generation of true and actual superheroes.

But less than a month after a single season of eight episodes hit Netflix all at once in May 2021, the streaming service announced that it had canceled the deconstructionist superhero show. Not only did the announcement shock fans, but it also surprised several members of the cast, with Josh Duhamel saying on Instagram, "It's never easy to hear that a project you cared about/ believed in/ put so much into is ending prematurely." But while there will be no second season of "Jupiter's Legacy," the show's legacy will continue. Almost simultaneous to the cancelation announcement, Netflix broke the news that it would adapt a related work by Millar: "Supercrooks." The animated series, set in the same televisual universe as "Jupiter's Legacy," will debut later in 2021, and it will focus on a group of supervillains and small-time criminals teaming up to pull off a major heist.

The universe of Hannibal Lecter — the charming, erudite, cannibalistic serial killer — and the FBI agents tasked with hunting him down and/or seeking his help has fascinated the public for more than 30 years. Based on the novel by Thomas Harris, we've had five movies about the monster, including the Oscar-winning "The Silence of the Lambs." 

This eventually led the way for two small-screen adaptations: NBC's cult classic "Hannibal" and CBS' "Clarice." The latter, developed for TV by "Star Trek" producers Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet, focused on FBI agent Clarice Starling (Rebecca Breeds, taking over the role originated by Jodie Foster) as she embarks on dark and troubling cases after experiencing the events depicted in "The Silence of the Lambs." 

"Clarice" aired just 12 episodes on CBS, where it ranked as the network's least-watched show across the board. But by June 2021, it was poised to move to fledgling streaming service Paramount+, where it would likely have fit right in as a flagship show and subscriber draw. However, talks between parent company ViacomCBS and co-producer MGM (at the time in the middle of an acquisition by Amazon) fell apart, leading to the show's untimely death.

In the middle of the 2017-18 season, NBC added to its lineup a darkly comic and unconventional suburban-set crime show — one about three women pushed to the brink. Following predecessor series about regular people who go rogue, such as "Breaking Bad" and "Weeds," "Good Girls" starred Christina Hendricks ("Mad Men"), Rhetta ("Parks and Recreation"), and Mae Whitman ("Arrested Development") as three Detroit friends facing relatable, prescient economic issues ... who then turn to crime to make ends meet. Of course, things veer wildly out of control as the trio falls afoul of a drug-running gang, and then they start to enjoy the crime and indulge in various illegal activities even after they're more financially solvent.

After four seasons at NBC, the ratings for "Good Girls" just weren't good enough for the network to justify a renewal. In its fourth (and now final) season, it averaged 1.5 million total viewers and a 0.3 in the advertiser-beloved 18-49 demographic. That made "Good Girls" NBC's lowest-watched drama overall and its second lowest-watched drama in the demo. However, producers sought a contingency plan in case of cancelation. Earlier seasons of "Good Girls" have performed very well on Netflix, so there were hopes the show could find new life on the site. Unfortunately for "Good Girls" fans, the streaming service declined the chance to pick up and produce additional episodes.

In September 2019, NBCUniversal announced that its emerging streaming service Peacock would be home to two reboots of signature, nostalgic programming from NBC's past: "Saved by the Bell" and "Punky Brewster." The former focused on a new batch of students at Bayside High, and with its wry and self-referential humor, it earned critical praise and a second-season pickup. The new "Punky Brewster," which finally hit Peacock in February 2021, was more of a sequel series, checking in with the plucky, tenacious, formerly homeless child Penelope "Punky" Brewster as she navigated adulthood. Filmed on a set with a studio audience and a laugh track like its predecessor, Soleil Moon Frye returned as the 40-something Punky, a single mother of three who still has feelings for her ex-husband (Freddie Prinze Jr.) and who becomes the guardian of a very-Punky like kid.

"Punky" 2.0 didn't thrill critics, earning a middling 57% on Rotten Tomatoes. After just 10 episodes on Peacock, NBCUniversal announced that the new "Punky Brewster" would not return for a second-season, making it the first half-hour sitcom canceled by the streamer, the crowded home of well-received comedies like "Rutherford Falls," "Girls5Eva," and "A.P Bio."

Brian K. Vaughn's post-apocalyptic comic book series "Y: The Last Man," concerning a world in which only one human being with the biologically male Y chromosome remains alive, took a long time to jump to the screen. According to The Hollywood Reporter, two feature film adaptations fell apart, only for FX to get the series rights in 2015. The network began working on a pilot in 2018, ordered a season in 2019, recast major roles in early 2020, and finally entered production in October 2020.

After airing seven episodes of the 10-episode debut season, FX canceled "Y: The Last Man." As The Hollywood Reporter explains it, the Disney-owned network almost never ends shows in the middle of their runs, preferring to look at post-broadcast factors like streaming viewing figures (FX has a major deal with Hulu) and DVR numbers before deciding whether or not a show is popular enough to merit renewal or cancelation. But because of a timetable surrounding contracts, FX didn't have the luxury of considering all that data. The network had to decide by October 15, 2021 whether or not to renew the contracts for the actors on "Y: The Last Man," which happened to fall mid-season, in part because the show's production endured so many time-eating delays. 

To keep attached performers on board, FX had to preemptively extend contracts before filming even began, which added millions to the show's budget. And because they didn't want to go through that again, "Y" met its unceremonious fate.

"The Sinner" is a dark, gritty, and haunting series that examines crime with intriguing empathy and a unique anthology format. Each season centers around a twist-laden case being investigated by troubled detective Harry Ambrose (Bill Pullman). Though critics showered the show with praise, in November 2021, USA announced that Season 4 of "The Sinner" would be its last.

In the 2000s and 2010s, USA became a home for many popular scripted shows, particularly its "Blue Skies" series — light, frothy, procedural dramas set in sunny, picturesque locations, like "Suits," "Burn Notice," "White Collar," "Royal Pains," "Monk," and "Psych." These series (and critically acclaimed, multiple-Emmy-winner "Mr. Robot") elevated USA to the number-one most-watched entertainment network on cable for 14 straight years, according to Deadline. But the 2020s have changed USA's slate significantly. As subscription-based streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max continue to pump out buzzy scripted dramas, ad-supported basic cable networks have struggled to compete. In recent years, USA has retooled towards reality TV and wrestling shows, and is also tasked with making room for an influx of sports programming from recently shut-down sister network NBCSN. "The Sinner" was the last dramatic original on USA, and one of its last scripted shows period.

Airing in the late 1990s, "Cowboy Bebop" became a cult classic and one of the most acclaimed and beloved anime series of all time. Heavily stylized, effortlessly cool, and underscored with an infectiously bluesy-jazzy soundtrack, the series concerned the space-set, noir-suggesting exploits of Spike Spiegel and Jet Black, interstellar bounty hunters who joined up with characters like a young hacker named Edward, con artist Faye Valentine, and Ein, a hyper-intelligent corgi. Only 26 episodes ever aired, plus a 2001 movie, so "Bebop" fans eagerly anticipated the premiere of the live-action series adaptation. 

First announced in 2017, the show didn't debut on Netflix until four years later. Why? Well, the series – starring John Cho, Mustafa Shakir, and Daniella Pineda as Spike, Jet, and Faye, respectively — began filming in 2019. Then Cho endured a knee injury on the set, and production didn't resume for almost a year. But when critics and viewers could finally stream the series in November, neither group was particularly impressed — it scored a 46% critical score and 57% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Nor did the series have much staying power, with viewership numbers dropping by 59% in its second week of availability. Less than three weeks after "Cowboy Bebop" premiered, Netflix decided to end the show's run at a single season of 10 episodes.