Canceled: These TV Shows You Love Are Now Gone Forever

Some shows beloved by fans and critics alike leave us all the time — even despite online petitions or social media rally cries trying to save them. They say all good things must come to an end, but it’s a total bummer when our most cherished television characters move on without us.

Whether due to COVID-19 complications, declining ratings or creators simply deciding to bring their shows to a natural conclusion, there are plenty of popular shows getting axed this year.

Using the list compiled by TV Show Finale, along with reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and reporting done by Variety, Deadline, and other entertainment magazines, here are some of the shows that are leaving the airwaves and some of the reasons why they’re ending.

From Netflix originals that cause a cultural shift to FX shows that are cult favorites, here is a round-up of the TV shows that will soon be off the air.

The Crown

Netflix

Yes, Queen!

Although Peter Morgan, The Crown’s writer and creator, had originally stated that the show’s upcoming fifth season would be its last, he reconsidered after beginning discussions with his team.

In mid-2020, Netflix confirmed that they would have a sixth and final season of royal antics, so you still have lots of time to catch up before it ends.

The Crown is known for the complexity of its narrative, and how they change their cast every few years to allow for their characters to age.

The latest cast, which The New York Times reports will include Imelda Stauntan as the new incarnation of the Queen, debuts in the fifth, and second-last season, premiering this year.

The fourth season left the royals in the 1990s, which was one of the worst decades on record for the Windsor family, encompassing several divorces, the publishing of tell-all books, and a fire at the castle.

There will be plenty of drama to choose from when writing the final episodes.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Amazon Prime

Midge’s fifth season will be her last.

In a round-up article published by Newsweek, showrunners Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino — who you may also know as creators of Gilmore Girls — admit that they knew they wanted to get out while the getting was good.

If their previous installment is any indication, the fifth season of Midge Maisel’s life will be eight episodes. That brings the series total to 42.

Five seasons of any show on a streaming platform is a definite achievement. Amazon Prime, too, has a habit of capping most shows at the third season.

According to Newsweek, in an investor’s call, Netflix admitted that most streaming series end after three seasons because that’s when they stop attracting new viewers — a key metric for data analysts.

Not only that, but as a streaming service gets older, they get more content, which makes them less reliant on just one success story.

Bye, Midge; break a leg.

The Ellen DeGeneres Show

NBC

After nearly two decades of dominating daytime television, The Ellen DeGeneres Show is set to air its final episode on May 26, 2022.

News of the cancellation followed recent allegations of a toxic work environment. There were also allegations of racial insensitivity, intimidation and misconduct by executives toward lower-level employees.

Degeneres later publicly apologized and three executive producers were fired after an investigation conducted by Warner Bros.

The veteran talk show host says the decision to ax the show at Season 19 wasn’t prompted by the controversy. “I was going to stop after season 16. That was going to be my last season, and they wanted to sign for four more years and I said I’d sign maybe for one … So, we [settled] on three more years, and I knew that would be my last. That’s been the plan all along,” she confided in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

Peaky Blinders

BBC

This British gangster drama series follows the exploits of Cillian Murphy’s Tommy Shelby and the ruthless Peaky Blinders gang in early 1900s Birmingham, England.

After COVID-19 disrupted filming, the series creator Steven Knight announced in 2021 that season six of Peaky Blinders had returned to production. The season is scheduled to be released on Netflix on June 10 and will also be the show’s last.

Knight has hinted at a Peaky Blinders film in the past, and in a statement teased, “While the TV series will be coming to an end, the story will continue in another form."

Black-ish

ABC

Tracee Ellis Ross-led Black-ish, about the upper middle class African-American Johnson family, was renewed for its eight and final season in May 2021.

Although some speculate the seventh season’s modest ratings may have caused the cancellation, series creator Kenya Barris says ending the ABC sitcom — which first premiered back in 2014 — was a creative choice.

Barris broke the news over Instagram saying, “In this day and age it is rare to get to decide when your show should come to an end, and we are grateful along with ABC to be able to make this final season exactly what we’d hoped for.”

The series finale aired on ABC on April 19, 2022. Ross, who played Rainbow Johnson to Anthony Anderson’s Andre, said she cried consistently through the last week of filming.

Love, Victor

Hulu

Love, Victor was positioned as a spiritual sequel and crossover from the 2018 movie, Love, Simon. The New York Times reported that Love, Simon was the first gay, teen romantic comedy in recent memory to be produced by a major Hollywood studio.

Love, Victor broke similar boundaries by focusing on a lead character who was dealing with ruptures in his family, a move to a different state, and questions about his identity.

Hulu has a similar mandate to Netflix in that its show runs are normally pretty short and sweet.

While the show ended up sticking with that informal rule, it also reached an organic finish line for Victor Salazar.

Love, Victor took place while he was in high school, and in the third season, Salazar is in his senior year, getting ready to graduate and begin the next phase of his life.

All episodes of its last season will be dropped in June 2022.

Ozark

Netflix

Netflix renewed this drama last year for a supersized fourth and final season.

“We’re so happy Netflix recognized the importance of giving Ozark more time to end the Byrdes’ saga right. It’s been such a great adventure for all of us — both on screen and off — so we’re thrilled to get the chance to bring it home in the most fulfilling way possible,” showrunner and executive producer Chris Mundy said.

The fourth season will be split into two seven-episode parts. The first half of the season was dropped in January, and Netflix has confirmed that the rest of the episodes will be released at the end of April 2022.

Killing Eve

BBC America

The award-winning cat-and-mouse thriller — starring Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer and initially written by Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge — will conclude with its fourth season.

Filming wrapped in late summer 2021, and the final season began to air on BBC America in February of 2022.

Unlike many other shows on this list, Killing Eve has enjoyed high ratings and award nominations throughout its run. BBC America is reportedly developing spinoffs focused on the supporting characters in the series, so fans can still look forward to an expansion of the Killing Eve universe.

Atlanta

FX

Say it ain’t so, Childish Gambino!

As Variety reported, Donald Glover — the actor, rapper, and all-around Renaissance human — originally wanted to end his ambitious show Atlanta after its second season.

The show, which focuses on Glover as Earn, a music manager trying to get his cousin’s rap career up off the ground, has won several awards during its tenure and had to take several production breaks due to how busy its stars were.

It had a stellar ensemble cast, including Zazie Beetz and Lakeith Stanfield.

Both critics and audiences loved the show, with Rotten Tomatoes giving its first season a 97% rating on its critical Tomatometer, and 91% for audience approval.

Atlanta returned with its third season beginning in March 2022 after taking a break from airing new episodes since 2018.

Stay tuned for more from this talented crew.

Derry Girls

Channel 4

One, two, and Derry makes three.

Derry Girls, which concerns itself with five teenagers growing up in 1990s Northern Ireland, was always meant to end after three seasons, said creator Lisa McGee in a 2021 tweet.

Because the five friends are in high school when the series begins, their graduation makes a natural way to end it.

Shows written and filmed in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland often have shorter seasons and shorter series, for a few reasons.

I Heart British TV writes that it often comes down to sheer numbers: They have smaller writing teams, and their TV channels are funded by licenses, not advertising.

With smaller budgets and smaller teams, and through a process of trial and error, producers are able to see which shows and ideas stick.

When it debuted in 2018 on Channel 4, Derry Girls was the biggest comedy premiere in the U.K. over the previous 15 years.

The second season was released in 2019, and the third was delayed by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Filming of the third season began in the fall of 2021.

Stranger Things

Netflix

The town of Hawkins will soon be getting its final wave of weird visitors.

Matt and Ross Duffer, creators of Stranger Things, wrote an open letter to the show’s fans, which they published in early 2022.

In the letter, they say that they had always seen the story as needing about four or five seasons to tell.

But, if you’re a die-hard fan of Eleven and her buddies, don’t despair as the Duffers seem to have left the door open for a potential spinoff.

While rumors are still mostly unsubstantiated, the good news is that the fifth season was just announced, and the fourth, penultimate season is having a staggered release in 2022, which is rare for Netflix.

So, there is still plenty of time to soak up the sci-fi darling.

This Is Us

NBC

This award-winning family drama series will conclude with its sixth and final season, which started in January of 2022, and is set to conclude in May.

News of its departure from NBC isn’t entirely unexpected.

Creator Dan Fogelman and co-showrunner Isaac Aptaker told Deadline back in 2019, while the third season was airing, that they were planning for This Is Us to end “about three seasons in the future.”

“We’ve had this end in mind for a long time, so we’re able to plan for it, and try to make it feel like it’s a whole, as opposed to a series that’s going to go endlessly,” Aptaker revealed.

Better Call Saul

AMC

Say goodbye to Slippin' Jimmy McGill — the critically-acclaimed Breaking Bad prequel is scheduled to end at the close of the currently airing season.

Bob Odenkirk, who plays the title character in Better Call Saul, told Digital Spy he has “mixed feelings” about the series’ conclusion. However, showrunner and executive producer Peter Gould said, “From day one of Better Call Saul, my dream was to tell the complete story of our complicated and compromised hero, Jimmy McGill — now AMC and Sony are making that dream come true.”

Production wrapped in spring of 2021, and the final season, its sixth, is split in two — with the first half launching on AMC in April of 2022 and the second part set to release in July.

But the last season isn’t expected to hit Netflix in the U.S. until sometime in 2023, according to Decider.

The Walking Dead

AMC

In 2020, when AMC announced it was ending The Walking Dead after more than a decade, fans were stunned.

For the most part, during its epic run, TWD had good, if not great, reviews. According to the metrics used by Rotten Tomatoes, it mostly earned A ratings from both critics and audiences.

Allegedly, the cancellation came because the showrunners wanted to concentrate on a number of the spinoffs they had planned. But entertainment site Fan Fest brought up some solid reasoning of their own.

As the series became more successful, launching several actors into the galaxy of stardom, the cost of producing each episode and the actors’ salaries also became astronomical. A number of central actors left the show over the past few years in order to pursue other opportunities.

Showrunners split the final season up, which allows for new content to be aired until the end of 2022. And fans won’t be waiting too long for Daryl and Carol to rise from the ashes in their anticipated sequel.

His Dark Materials

HBO

HBO and the BBC have renewed this fantasy drama series, based on the Philip Pullman trilogy of the same name, for a third and final season, which is set to air in the fall of 2022 given the complexity of its visual special effects.

The last season will likely follow the events of The Amber Spyglass, the third book in the His Dark Materials series. The TV adaptation starring Dafne Keen, James McAvoy, Ruth Wilson and Lin-Manuel Miranda has been generally well-received by critics compared to the 2007 film adaptation The Golden Compass, which was a critical and commercial flop.

And unlike some of the other TV shows on this list, His Dark Materials will be coming to its natural conclusion with Season 3.

American Rust

Showtime

Showtime fired chief of police Del Harris after one season.

The show, based on the debut Philipp Meyer novel of the same name, was based in a small, Rust Belt town in Pennsylvania.

It told the story of a compromised police officer, played by Jeff Daniels, who has to figure out what he is going to do after the son of the woman he loves is accused of murder.

Also starring Maura Tierney and Alex Neustaedter, the show received some criticism for placing contrived storylines over building character, according to a review published by Variety.

The reviewer claimed that American Rust attempted to highlight complex characters living working class lives, but never truly forgot the camera was watching.

Its critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes was only 27%, and they struggled to retain viewers.

After Life

Netflix

After Life, about a grumpy British newspaper man mourning the premature death of his wife, will be ending after its third season, which dropped in early 2022 on Netflix.

Both written by and starring Ricky Gervais, who you may know from TV juggernauts such as The Office (U.K.) and Derek, this show has already lasted longer than his others. It’s the first show Gervais has written that’s gone beyond its second season.

In an interview with entertainment magazine Deadline, he says that while the audience’s desire to see a fourth season was definitely there, he didn’t want After Life to “outstay its welcome.”

He says he will miss it, but he also has a deal for more content with Netflix and is figuring out which of his ideas will make it to production.

After Life simply reached the end of its natural life and its creator is moving on.

The Wendy Williams Show

Fox

The embattled talk show has finally been canceled after a valiant, slow-motion swan dive.

The show, which is distributed by Debmar-Mercury and syndicated by Fox and BET according to a post by USA Today, first debuted in July of 2008.

What’s interesting about the latest episodes of this show is that it has been missing its host and namesake.

Williams, who has been dealing with health issues including a breakthrough case of COVID-19 in September 2021, has been too ill to sit in the purple chair this season.

At first, the show had a rotating list of guest hosts, but after it became clear that Wendy could not return, Sherri Shepherd was named as her permanent replacement.

Fans who loved the show seemed to really love the show, probably due to what Rotten Tomatoes dubbed Williams’ “distinctive personality” and her often unpredictable takes on pop culture in segments like Hot Topics.

She has gotten her share of negative reviews, too, as the “shock jockette” persona that carried over from her days in radio stirred up a fair amount of controversy.

While Sherri will get her own talk show after Wendy wraps, nobody has heard from Wendy herself about “how she’s doin’.”

The Dr. Oz Show

Sony Pictures Television

Just call him Senator Dr. Oz.

Newsweek reported that in late November 2021, Dr. Oz announced that he would be running for the Republican primary for the U.S. senate seat in Pennsylvania.

Due to the equal time rule, which stipulates that all political candidates be given equal amounts of broadcast air time, Dr. Oz wound up his show earlier than expected, as he’d previously renewed the series for a 14th season that would carry him into 2023.

He even changed his show’s URL to say “Dr Oz Show,” as the original “Doctor Oz” was repurposed as his campaign website.

He was convinced to run for office after realizing that “America’s heartbeat is in a code red in need of a defibrillator to shock it back to life,” as he explained on his official website.

But don’t worry — apparently, TV shows are hereditary.

Variety reports that his daughter Daphne filled his time slot without skipping a beat. You can tune in for her new cooking show, The Good Dish.

Dickinson

Apple TV+

Emily Dickinson’s life … funny?

Apparently, the white-dress wearing, slightly agoraphobic poet — whose massive output of writing was only discovered after she died — was fit for a sitcom treatment.

While the show is coming to a close, creator Alena Smith said in The Hollywood Reporter that Dickinson was always going to have a three-season arc.

She wanted to bring the poet’s work and impact to a new generation, and she succeeded, with the help of a stunning cast including Hailee Steinfield as Emily, Anna Baryshnikov as Emily’s sister, Lavinia, and Jane Krakowski as their mother.

Not to mention Wiz Khalifa with an iconic cameo as Emily’s famed Death (as in “Because I could not stop for Death — He kindly stopped for me”) in the first season.

In its short life, the ambitious project won several awards, including a Peabody, and was nominated for many others.

Grace and Frankie

Netflix

The writing has been on the wall of the beach house for Grace and Frankie since 2019.

At that time, Netflix announced that the series’ upcoming seventh season would be its last, but as with everything else, COVID-19 delayed both filming and production.

The sitcom stars veteran actors Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as well as an ensemble cast that included Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen. The plot is focused on the burgeoning friendship of two older women after their husbands leave them to be with each other.

Netflix rarely keeps a show around for as long as Grace and Frankie, as none of its original shows have reached the 100-episode mark — which used to be the threshold for shows to be picked up for syndicated reruns.

It’s a testament to the chemistry of the cast, as well as the quality of the writing that the show aired for as long as it did.

The magazine New Music Express, more commonly known as NME, confirmed that Dolly Parton, who was previously seen with Fonda and Tomlin in the 1980 comedy 9 to 5, will finally be making a cameo in the episodes slated to air in 2022.

Narcos: Mexico

Netflix

It came as something of a surprise to fans when Netflix announced the third season of Narcos: Mexico would be its last, according to Newsweek.

The showrunner, Carlo Bernard, explained to the The Hollywood Reporter, "I saw this season as an origin story of the modern world that we live in. For me, it felt like bringing the show up to that spot where we now recognize, for better or for worse, made sense as a place to stop it.”

Its predecessor, Narcos, also ended with three seasons, so it makes a kind of symmetrical sense that its sequel would too. But, Narcos: Mexico has a more open ending, leaving room for the showrunners to write a spinoff if they felt like it.

Eric Newman, who headed up all three seasons of the original and the first two seasons of Narcos: Mexico, has a production deal with Netflix to create more films and TV shows.

Better Things

FX

Pamela Adlon, who first came to the public’s attention as the voice of Bobby Hill in Fox’s King of the Hill, has a gravelly voice and deadpan delivery that’s made her a perennial favorite in sitcoms since the 1990s.

In Better Things, Adlon writes, directs and stars in the role of single mom Sam Fox, who is trying to work as an actor while parenting her three daughters.

Its first season of ten episodes was originally ordered in 2015, and the show debuted in 2016, according to an article by Deadline.

In its five seasons, Better Things, which also stars Celia Imrie as Sam’s befuddled mother, has garnered a lot of critical praise for its acting and writing.

The show won a Peabody Award in 2017, and Adlon has been nominated for a Golden Globe and an Emmy for her portrayal of Sam.

The multi-talented actor has signed a new, overall deal with FX Productions, and potentially with other facets of Walt Disney Television, for future scripted and unscripted shows.

Cooking with Paris

Netflix

Rumor has it, Paris’ recipe for success was not so hot this time around.

After one season and only six episodes, Netflix opted not to renew the reality TV star’s new cooking show.

The trailers on YouTube show Paris brandishing a diamond-encrusted spatula to flip burgers while chatting with guest stars including Demi Lovato, Saweetie and Kim Kardashian.

Most of the action happens in her appropriately chaotic, bejeweled kitchen. Reactions to the show were mixed.

Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 25% rating on its Tomatometer, while audiences were more enthusiastic, giving it a solid B, or 73%. This show seems to have gotten the ax for the classic reason — lack of viewers. After it debuted in August, it only briefly cracked Netflix’s daily Top 10.

Knowing her track record, though, Paris probably has another idea on its way to hatching. One where getting her feathers in everything is actually an advantage.

The Hills: New Beginnings

MTV

Wait, what year is it?

The Hills: New Beginnings launched in 2019 as a “where are they now?” update on the popular reality show The Hills, which ran from 2006-2010.

Most of the original cast came back for the sequel, and cameras aimed to follow the crew of friends as they navigated distinctly more grown-up situations.

In January 2022, MTV confirmed that it wouldn’t be filming a third season of the show. You can chalk up this show’s demise to the COVID-19 pandemic, for the most part.

In an interview with Variety, the cast revealed they struggled during filming without the regular presence of their families and the friends that they’d made in the decade since the original series aired.

Even though New Beginnings got a rough ending, the producers and cast are still hinting at new iterations of the reality franchise yet to come. For now, Paramount+ has previous seasons of The Hills on its streaming platform.

I Know What You Did Last Summer

Amazon Prime