The biggest travesty for me was the cancellation of Odyssey 5. Anybody watch this? It was by Manny Coto and starred Peter Weller.
At the time I thought it was one of the most intelligent shows I'd seen, there was so much information packed into each episode, especially the first few. One of the strengths of the show was that in addition to the great mystery at the core, because of the time travel element there was a chance to have some human stories told in a unique way. The one I remember most was a mother knowing her child would have cancer(?) and having him/her checked even though the doctors and her husband thought she was crazy.

Nash Bridges back in 2001 - it wasn't a great show, but nonetheless mindless fun especially if you don't have anything to do on Fri night. Although to be fair, Don Johnson has shown alot of unpredictableness in his career, which is prolly why CBS axed it.

The Fugitive back in 2001 - the ratings weren't that bad, but it was the most expensive show ever made, more than enough for its costs to exceed its revenues. Too bad b/c it was just as every bit good as the Harrison Ford/Tommy Lee Jones white-knuckler thriller.

I am being a bit lazy and have not read every other comment, but there is only one show that I miss and wish was still running or at least ran until there was not a drop of creativity left:

Babylon 5

I really miss Carnivale. It was only one HBO for two seasons and was really good.
OZ was another HBO show that was really good, but at least got we 6 seasons out of it.
Dark Shadows. I dont think it would work very well today, but I still miss it.
Soon to be added to this list is Lost. =(

That went too long as it is.
Don't get me wrong, I love the show. But it was planned with a four year story arc, and then when it got renewed they had to tack on a 5th season.
I do wish there would've been more movies or that another series set in the same universe would have lasted longer.

Ahh, B5, that was a great sci fi series.

Actualy JMS always intended it to be a 5 year story arc but during Season 4 they didn't know if they would get
renewed for Season 5, so he crammed alot of story arc stuff into Season 4 and filmed the finale episode, Sleeping In Light,
in case it was cancelled, but TNT picked it up for another season so he had to backtrack a bit and throw in some
stuff to pad out Season 5, which is why IMO Season 5 wasn't that great, but the last couple of episodes and the
series finale made up for it.

I have to give credit to JMS for being able to change some things in his 5 year plan to account for actors or actresses
leaving the show and still keep continuity as best he could.

As for some shows I think got cancelled to soon

Quantum Leap- that last ep was never ment to be the finale, they thought NBC was gonna renew but they
cancelled instead. That still bothers me.

The Pretender- 4 seasons was not enough, at least TNT made two follow up up tv movies but like QL they haven't
given the show a proper finale. I doubt we'll ever get it now.

Farscape- freaking awesome show, hated Sc Fi Channel when it cancelled it out of nowhere after Season 4.
Thankfully they came to their senses after the fan backlash and gave us The Peacekeeper War's mini series
to wrap up the show, but also left the door open for more adventures in the future, which their just starting to do from what I heard.

Jericho- CBS never gave this show a chance, and if it wasn't for the die hard fans campaign with the Nuts we would never
have gotten the second season, and then they kill it again. I hear their going to try and put together a movie to
follow up where things left off in Season 2, good luck with that I say.

Pushing Daises- A really different show and alot of fun, loved the humor. I was so ticked that ABC cancelled it after
just 2 seasons.

That's all I think of at the moment, I would add Firefly to the list but I never saw the show so I can't
comment on it.

Firefly
Journeyman
Committed
Veronica Mars
Pushing Daisies
Raines

The Critic. Great movie parodies, intelligent scripts, and Charles Napier. How did this show not take off?!

Firefly
Wonderfalls

I felt the two series still had a whole lot more to offer. Especially Firefly.

Clerks: The Animated Series

A show before its time. ABC only showed 2 episodes and made 6. The humor reminds me of Family Guy in its absurdity, but it also manages to contribute to the plot of the episode. I also loved all the references to old movies and TV shows.

The best episode was "A Dissertation on the American Justice System by People Who Have Never Been Inside a Courtroom, Let Alone Know Anything About the Law, but Have Seen Way Too Many Legal Thrillers."

I'll add my votes for Carnivale and Dead Like Me. Two absorbing shows with two great seasons each - just imagine what could have been done with a few more seasons. I have seen some online mentions of a Dead Like Me straight-to-DVD followup movie, though.

I would have liked "A Minute with Stan Hooper" to have stayed on for longer than it did. I had hopes of it being a "Northern Exposure" fish out of water story.

Arrested Development
Freaks and Geeks
Undeclared
Deadwood(never got to wrap everything up)
Rome(was forced to condense it's stories in season two. would've been great if allowed to reach it's planned five year arc)
My so Called Life
SportsNight(well technically, Sorkin was to blame as he moved on to West Wing but this was a great show)

Daybreak. They canceled it halfway through the first season, thankfully they put the rest of the episodes online. It was such an awesome idea, too bad it just didn't catch on.

and Journeyman. Another neat idea (i always love time travel!) that just didn't catch on. Sometimes I wonder if shows that require too much thinking on the viewer just never quite make it...

True. But in all fairness it's all up to the viewers. The best show will get canceled if no one watches. Paint drying will run for years if people watch.

What have you heard? I miss this show as well. Started missing it when Virginia Hey (Zhaan) left...

Mystery Science Theater 3000. If this last decade proved anything, it's that they would never run out of bad movies, it could have continued for another 15 or 20 years.
Futurama: Better than the Simpsons. It was goofy and weird. I have an ex who said "That show is so you." I love how one of the DVDs had a math lecture.
Firefly: Best Sci-Fi TV show ever, should have brought the show back instead of making a movie.
Freaks and Geeks: Ok, I was 1 year old when this show took place (1981), but as a friend of mine pointed out, it's like going back to high school and not in a good way. Jason Segel was awesome in that show, reminded us of a guy we used to hang out with.
Family Guy: When it came back, it just wasn't as good anymore. Maybe they should have stayed canceled.
Farscape: I think. It was certainly going "downhill".

I can't think of any others right now. I wish they would cancel The Simpsons already. The show's best episodes were over a decade ago and these days it's just a shell of it's former self. The movie was like a five parter which wasn't nearly as good as the best episodes of the early 90's. I recently bought the Season 11 DVD and I couldn't believe how a lot of the episodes weren't any better than when they first aired.

Absolutely! That was a show that really started picking up steam through its second half and into the season (series) finale.

For those arguing Jericho shouldn't have been cancelled....really? I agree that the first season was top-notch stuff, and the abbreviated second season was alright, but what else could they have done after that? I'm not particularly interested in seeing Texas and the US go to war with the Allied States, and felt that the ending to season two provided more than enough closure.

A show that I hold very dear to my heart is the computer-animated cartoon ReBoot, which was cancelled after one of the biggest cliffhangers that I can remember. Thought I guess there's talk of a ReBoot movie, and they just did a web-comic "sequel".

Also, thanks to the poster who mentioned Nash Bridges. I used to love that show, especially when Steve Austin would guest star

in a word, Stella.

Brimstone. Great premise, great acting by the principals, killer plot twist halfway through season one:



And was immediately canceled after said episode. What, was Fox expecting this admittedly intricate concept to become a top 20 show? Must everything be top 20 to justify staying in production? Can't you give such programs at least 1 1/2 years to find itself an audience? Every year there for awhile they would put something quirky (i.e. somewhat limited appeal) like this show on the air, it wouldn't quite garner the ratings Fox thought it should have, and the show gets instantly sh*tcanned.