You know when a TV show is cancelled on a cliffhanger? It occurs all too often, so we thought we’d share some (brave, kind) writers for cancelled TV shows for all of us after realizing there was no other way to find out.
1. A Lizzie McGuire writer recently revealed how the canceled reunion program would have gone.
Jonathan Hurwitz reported via TikTok that Lizzie is now living in New York as an interior designer with her chef boyfriend, who subsequently cheats on her with her closest friend. So Lizzie returns home to California. Gordo is engaged and expecting a child with another woman.
2. Executive producers Joey Falco and Jeffrey Lieber revealed that the Charmed revival would have established a Charmed multiverse in season five, which never aired.
They disclosed that Mel would have flourished as the new manager of the Blue Camellia and reconnected with Roxie; Kaela would have started a relationship with a woman; and the producers had invited cast members from the original show to appear in the remake to suggest a multiverse. Oh, what could have been.
3. Showrunner Rachel Shukert “really wanted to do a super-special” for Netflix’s The Babysitter’s Club before it was cancelled after season two.
“I was trying to figure out whether they should go to New York. Should they be snowed in? It relied on where they would let us shoot, and I was thrilled about making a story that would take them through high school—not to finish everything up, but to honor what we created,” she told Vulture.
4. Bryan Fuller, the creator of the Hannibal series, hinted at what season four might have looked like.
They “would have explored the Hannibal/Will Graham relationship in a much deeper fashion than the series ever has before,” according to him. He also revealed that “Will and Hannibal, who had previously discussed and committed murders independently, are now doing so jointly. That felt like the next step in their relationship—that they were about to become the murder husbands of fanfic lore.”
5. Hawaii Five-0’s showrunner, Peter M. Lenkov, hinted at season 11 intentions.
Lance Gross may have been a series regular in season 11, but a discarded cliffhanger in season 10 revealed “a little relationship beat between Tani and Junior.” The first several episodes would have aired without McGarrett, who “needs a moment to breathe,” the showrunner revealed.
“If you recall, Junior killed his ex-girlfriend’s lover, and Tani discovers that he has been supporting them as a result of his remorse. So there was a storyline about it that would go into Season 11,” he explained.
6. In a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA), My Name Is Earl creator Greg Garcia disclosed the ending of the cancelled show, which ended on a cliffhanger.
“We never really got the chance to fully figure it out but the talk in the writers’ room was that Earl Jr.’s dad was going to be someone famous,” he stated during the discussion. Like Dave Chappelle or Lil John. Joy slept with someone who had come to town on tour. But when we were canceled, we never had the chance to sort it out. I was concerned about creating a cliffhanger, but I asked NBC if it was okay to have one after the season, and they said it was. I suppose it wasn’t.
“I had always planned an ending for Earl, and I’m sorry I didn’t get to see it happen. You have a program about a guy with a list, so not seeing him complete it is disappointing. But the truth is, he was never going to finish the list,” he said.
“The main idea behind the ending was that while he was stuck on a particularly difficult list item, he would become frustrated that he would never be able to complete it. Then he meets someone who has a list of their own, and Earl appears on it.
They needed to make amends for anything wrong they had done to Earl. He asks them where they got the idea to make a list, and they tell him that someone came to them with a list, and that person got the idea from another.
Earl soon realizes that his list sets off a chain reaction of individuals with lists and that he has finally brought more good into the world than bad. So at that moment, he was going to rip up his list and go about his life. Walk into the sunset as a free man. “With good karma.”
7. If Castle had not been canceled, sources believe Kate would have survived the gunfight.
According to the same sources, Beckett would not return to the show; Kate would have faked her death, and the season would open with a jump-forward to a mourning Rick.
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8. Following the cancellation of the show, the whole unaired script for the adapted Arthur Conan Doyle story The Lost World was made available online.
The writers began the screenplay by stating that they had been informed that the program was renewed for a fourth season, so they made the end of season three a cliffhanger. However, when the program was not renewed, they published their intentions for it: “What this document provides… is our final revelation of what might have been in store beyond Season Three,” they stated.
9. Lovecraft Country season 2 would have featured zombies, according to executive producer Misha Green’s Twitter postings, which have since been deleted.
She revealed that season two, titled Lovecraft Country: Supremacy, would take place “in a new world, and that new world is a country that sits precisely where the United States used to sit.” She released a map of the new world, stating that “The Whitelands is a territory that is completely overrun by zombies—most of them of the slower variety, but with pockets of fast-moving zombies too.”
One of the consequences of using ‘The Origin’ spell was the birth of a zombie populace. Lovecraft Country season 2 would have featured zombies, according to executive producer Misha Green’s Twitter postings, which have since been deleted.
She revealed that season two, titled Lovecraft Country: Supremacy, would take place “in a new world, and that new world is a country that sits precisely where the United States used to sit.”
She released a map of the new world, stating that “The Whitelands is a territory that is completely overrun by zombies—most of them of the slower variety, but with pockets of fast-moving zombies too.”
One of the consequences of using ‘The Origin’ spell was the birth of a zombie populace. “When the shadow comes for Ilonka and gives her this understanding — this ‘remembering’ — she realizes she has nothing to fear,” claimed Flanagan. “She and Kevin will shed these personas, be reborn, and have the joy of finding each other another way.”
10. Constantine showrunner Daniel Cerone also published a script that depicted what might have transpired in the first season’s unaired episode 14.
According to the script, Constantine would have discovered after running with an old acquaintance, Judith, that she had released Evil of the Week to atone for her role in Astra’s damnation. Zed could also save John’s life and Judith left.
11. James Parriot, the creator of Defying Gravity, explained how the scrapped show would have concluded.
In an interview, he divulged much information, including the fact that “they were all going to be tested.” The premise was that they all had times in their lives when they would have taken a different course if they could do it all over again. Beta—the ‘fractal objects’ — were going to put them in identical conditions and hold them accountable to themselves again, giving them another chance to make a decision.”
“Yeah, people recognized quite early on that Arnel’s limb loss would bring Zoe back into the program. At the start of the second season, she’ll be at home, working as a college teacher, having another romance, and having washed her hands of the whole thing. Donner’s going to go crazy. They’ll be undertaking survival training for the mission, and Arnel will lose a leg, while Zoe will be called back,” he continued.
12. Showrunner Josh Safran described what the Gossip Girl remake might have been like if it had gotten a third season.
He said that in sequences from the season two finale that was cut when it became evident that there would be no season three, it was discovered that the boy Zoya met in Italy was up to something—he also met Julien, Audrey, and Max, each with a different accent and name.
It also turned out that David and Nick’s mother was not who we assumed, and Gossip Girl would become an app.
Kate would have remained in prison, he revealed.
13. Shawn Ryan, executive producer of The Unit, explained what would have happened if season five had gone on as planned.
“It was going to be a whole new show in the sense that we were going to train some young people, and Bob was going to train some individuals for a whole new organization. “Jonas’ run was finally coming to an end,” he explained.
“I expected the fifth season to be the final one. Jonas was in for a lengthy, final mission. He is not medically cleared; Mac must go in and update the medical records so that Jonas can continue going on missions. We had a whole thing planned; it was going to be great,” he said.
14. Will Forte, the creator and star of the canceled program The Last Man on Earth, revealed how it would have ended on a Vulture podcast.
“But the way we would have treated these [masked] folks was that they had been in this bunker and had gone down when the virus first appeared. They had a medical specialist or scientist who knew that at this point, the virus would be dormant. You’ll be OK to leave again. Then they notice a group of stragglers—us. And we pose a serious threat to them since they assumed everything was dead, so they quarantined us,” he explained.
“And we eventually speak with them briefly. They became familiar with us. They are extremely kind individuals. They appear menacing, but they are friendly people. There are probably a few notable people in there, or at least one. I am not sure who this is. Somebody is acting.
Someone is the primary person. And finally, we’d all become familiar with each other, and they’d let one person go. “They wouldn’t be scared anymore,” he said.
“We are immune to the infection, but we are carriers. So we would infect them, and they would die like wildfire. Then we’re back to simply ourselves. Perhaps we could persuade one famous person to stay. So, that would have been it.”
15. Brannon Braga, Terra Nova’s executive producer, provided the plot for the second season.
After stating that the actors would have battled “highly intelligent dinosaurs,” he went on to say, “We do know [that beasts like that] existed at the time… but [they’d have been] done believably.”
“Then [there would be] a big showdown, and Taylor [Stephen Lang] was going to go crazy,” he told me. “The main source of conflict would be between Taylor and Jim Shannon [Jason O’Mara] and a battle for control of the colony and how to deal with these new dangers.
