Why does every new show keep getting canceled?
This summer saw the end of the iCarly reboot’s three-year run, ending on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved. The show’s cancellation brought around discourse on shows being canceled before their natural conclusion, with showrunners and writers adding cliffhangers in a last-ditch attempt to keep the show on television. While there have always been shows that end on cliffhangers and were taken off television without a real finale, the phenomenon seems to have become more frequent in the streaming era. iCarly, specifically, ended with Carly and Spencer’s mom being revealed after all these years, a question that has plagued child, and now adult, audiences who grew up with the characters. After this, the show was canceled due to low viewership. The television and streaming industry have found themselves in a catch-22, where people refuse to watch new shows out of fear of becoming attached and the show being canceled, while people in the industry are canceling shows because so few people are watching them.
The industry has found itself with expectations that are too high, canceling shows before they have time to build an audience and cult following. People complain that a show like Grey’s Anatomy keeps getting renewed while so many “better” shows were taken away too soon. But shows like Grey’s Anatomy were given ample time to cultivate consistent viewership, even when the content has not always been high quality. People avoided watching the iCarly reboot for fear that it would never live up to their memory of the original. However, those memories cannot be separated from childhood nostalgia. Watching the show myself, I found that it was a perfectly acceptable sitcom with Jerry Trainor (Spencer Shay) remaining a great comedic talent and the other actors being able to evolve their characters to adulthood extremely well. It delved into the Freddie/Carly dynamic in a more mature and interesting way and introduced lovable new characters with great potential. The show could never have been considered as “good” as the original because most people’s memories of the original are riddled with nostalgia. Its actual quality does not differ all that much, with the adult themes being a fun change and writing quality being on par with other sitcoms on air.
It feels like the reboot never stood a chance because many avoided the show for fear of ruining childhood nostalgia and many potential new viewers avoided it for the universal fear of becoming attached and the show being canceled. A similar fate befell How I Met Your Father (2022), the reboot of How I Met Your Mother (2005), which was canceled after only two seasons and multiple agonizing cliffhangers for fans. As someone who watched the original series in middle school and went on to watch the reboot as it aired, the quality of the two shows in terms of comedy and characters is relatively similar. Season 1 may have experienced some growing pains but most shows do (The Office’s first season really struggled after all), but now they’re not being given a chance to continue the improvement shown in season 2 while also continuing to build a cult audience.
Lots of shows die slow, painful deaths over many seasons while others are taken away before they find their footing, all of which only strengthens the issues in the industry. Many viewers blame the “deteriorating quality” of television shows instead of recognizing their biases and the catch-22 situation for writers, the industry, and audiences. The cancellation of the iCarly reboot epitomizes the issues, being constantly compared to nostalgia-clouded memories of the original show and being canceled before its natural ending, proving everyone who was scared to start it right. It was by no means the best sitcom on television but its quality was on par with others like it and it was on its way to improving before its untimely ending. Now, it seems doomed to be remembered as an “unnecessary reboot” that only created more questions. I fear that shows will continue to be canceled before being given a real chance to improve and build, just like the iCarly reboot.