Dearly departed

A moment of silence, please, for canceled TV series that won’t be coming back

Fans are still in shock from the sudden cancellation of Castle. At least they got to see Rick and Kate (Nathan Fillion, Stana Katic) live happily ever after.
Fans are still in shock from the sudden cancellation of Castle. At least they got to see Rick and Kate (Nathan Fillion, Stana Katic) live happily ever after.

Alas, fellow TV lovers, we can put off the inevitable no longer. We must mourn the fallen, suck it up and move on.

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On The Good Wife, did Alicia (Julianna Margulies) wind up with Jason (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) or her ex-husband, or strike out on her own? It’s a viewer’s choice. The series ended ambiguously on purpose.

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Nashville, starring Connie Britton as Rayna Jaymes and Charles Esten as Deacon Claybourne, was on the bubble for two seasons before ABC pulled the plug.

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Will Jake and Laura (Josh Lucas, Debra Messing) get back together on NBC’s The Mysteries of Laura? We’ll never know. The series has been canceled.

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Melissa George played a brilliant surgeon juggling three men in her life on NBC’s Heartbeat. Did she pick Dr. Pierce Harrison (Dave Annable) shown here? Viewers will never know. The show is history.

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Mike & Molly (Billy Gardell, Melissa McCarthy) have hugged their last hug on their CBS series. The network has pulled the plug.

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Beauty & the Beast fans need to enjoy Kristin Kreuk and Jay Ryan while they can. Season 4 — the final season — begins June 2.

That's the way it has always been with TV -- never look back.

The broadcast networks held their fall "upfront" meetings with advertisers last week and that means the bean counters have crunched their numbers and the programming chairmen have gazed into their crystal balls and pondered their options.

New fall and midseason recruits have been signed up for 2016-2017, many veterans have been renewed and, unfortunately, a number of pink slips have gone out for those series that have either run their course or didn't make the cut.

If there's anything I've learned in 23 years of covering the TV beat, it's that fans become attached -- sometimes inordinately attached -- to their favorite shows. It doesn't matter if a series lacks the ratings to hang on, if it's your favorite, then its cancellation is often felt on a deeply personal level.

We welcome these programs into our homes on a weekly basis. We rearrange our schedules to be there when they air. We join chat groups and poke around the websites for tidbits and gossip. We become emotionally involved with the characters, their welfare, their heartbreaks, their hopes and desires.

They become surrogate family members, and it's always tough when an old favorite bites the dust. But it's rarely really unexpected. Early word of looming cancellation came

for many last season, but the weeping and wailing of the blindsided Castle, CSI: Cyber and Nashville fans still echo across the vast wasteland.

I'll get into the individual network fall plans for their new shows in The TV Column as the fall season gets nearer. Bear in mind that the fall schedules, despite what the networks announce in advance, are always in flux and some shows that have been renewed will not arrive until midseason or even later.

Meanwhile, here's a breakdown by network of the survivors and casualties from this past season. I feel your pain.

ABC

First ABC announced Castle co-star Stana Katic would not return for the fall season in "a cost-cutting move." Many saw this as the writing on the wall -- Castle was doomed. Nonetheless, many held out hope that maybe Nathan Fillion would carry on by himself.

The network waited until just five days before the Season 8 finale on May 16 to pull the plug. Castle producers, however, were prepared with an emergency ending that they hoped would give fans a semblance of closure.

The original cliffhanger ending (had another season been ordered) had Kate and Rick shot and bleeding out on the floor. We presume that Kate would not have made it.

After the cancellation, fans also got the tacked on ending as well. Set seven years later, it showed a happy, not dead, Kate and Rick playing with three giggly kids. And so it ended.

Perhaps it's for the best. Us Weekly and other sources have reported that Katic and Fillion haven't gotten along for years. One source even said they "completely despise each other and don't speak off set."

Didn't show on screen? It's called "acting."

But the network ax didn't stop there. Nashville, which had been on the bubble since 2014, was whacked after four seasons of toe-tapping country music and soapy drama.

At least we got to see the talented Stella sisters (Lennon and Maisy Stella played Maddie and Daphne Conrad) grow up a bit. We'll see them again on stage somewhere.

Also not invited back in the fall were The Muppets, The Family, Marvel's Agent Carter, Rookie Blue and Galavant. Canned earlier in the season (so early we've forgotten they were ever on) were Blood & Oil, Of Kings and Prophets, The Astronaut Wives Club, The Whispers and Wicked City.

During an upfront conference call last week, ABC president Channing Dungey explained the process for cancelling Castle and Nashville, but her rationale applies to any show on any network.

"Internally on the network side, it was kind of the best fit for things on the schedule," Dungey said. "Obviously [we were] looking at ratings, looking at our own finances and looking at some of the new developments.

"A lot of the decisions really did come down to the wire, which is the difficult thing about these jobs. You have to kind of weigh and measure a lot of different things. And at the end of the day, it didn't feel that -- even though Castle and Nashville were wonderful shows for us and good performers for a long time -- that the future for us did not necessarily lie in those shows."

If you are lamenting the loss of your favorite program, just plug its title in there instead of Castle and Nashville. That's pretty much been the response every time we ask a network executive about why a show was canned.

Here are the series that ABC did invite back: America's Funniest Home Videos, American Crime, The Bachelor, black-ish, The Catch, Dancing With the Stars, Dr. Ken, Fresh off the Boat, Grey's Anatomy and The Goldbergs.

Also returning are How to Get Away With Murder, Last Man Standing, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Mistresses, Modern Family, Once Upon a Time, Quantico, The Middle, The Real O'Neals, Scandal, Secrets and Lies and Shark Tank.

Advance notice: Fans need not panic when they study the fall schedules and notice Scandal isn't there. ABC plans to keep the show on the sidelines until midseason to accommodate star Kerry Washington's maternity leave.

CBS

The demise of CSI: Cyber after two seasons means that for the first time since 2000, there will be no CSI franchise series on the network.

The original CSI: Crime Scene Investigation debuted in 2000 and ran for an impressive 15 seasons. The others were CSI: Miami (2002-2012) and CSI: NY (2004-2013).

A total of 797 episodes of the CSI franchise aired.

Never fear, Ted Danson fans. The veteran actor (Cheers, Becker), who moved from CSI to CSI: Cyber, will be back in the fall on The Good Place, an NBC sitcom co-starring Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars).

Bell's current series, Showtime's House of Lies, ends its five-season run June 13.

The Good Wife, the best drama on broadcast TV, left the stage on its own terms May 8. In addition, CBS shipped Supergirl over to corporate little sister The CW where it'll be a better fit alongside other comic book series Arrow, The Flash and DC's Legends of Tomorrow.

Others getting the CBS boot were Angel From Hell, Extant, Mike & Molly, Person of Interest, Rush Hour and Under the Dome.

Still in limbo at press time: Limitless. It's being shopped around.

Invited back were 2 Broke Girls, Blue Bloods, Big Brother, Code Black, Criminal Minds, Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, Elementary, Hawaii Five-0, Life in Pieces, Madam Secretary, Mom, NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans, Scorpion, Survivor, The Amazing Race, The Odd Couple, Undercover Boss and Zoo.

Talk about job security, TV's top comedy, The Big Bang Theory, earned a rare three-season renewal back in 2014. And TV's No. 1 drama, NCIS, has been renewed through 2017-18. It'll soldier on without Michael Weatherly as Anthony DiNozzo.

Weatherly fans rejoice. CBS has signed the actor to its new drama, Bull, based on talk show host Phil McGraw's early years.

FOX

It wasn't a good year on Fox for aging heartthrobs. The network is dumping comedies Grandfathered (starring John Stamos, 52) and The Grinder (starring Rob Lowe, also 52).

And, of course, the Fox elephant in the room left the building this season. American Idol ended its long, slowly declining run after 15 seasons.

Also kicked to the curb were midseason hopefuls Bordertown, Knock Knock Live, Minority Report, Second Chance and Cooper Barrett's Guide to Surviving Life. We hardly knew they were there.

Coming back to Fox next season will be Bob's Burgers, Bones (for a 12th and final season), Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Empire, Family Guy, Gotham, Hell's Kitchen, Lucifer, MasterChef, MasterChef Junior, New Girl, Rosewood, The Last Man on Earth, The Simpsons, Scream Queens, So You Think You Can Dance, Wayward Pines and World's Funniest.

Also returning is Sleepy Hollow, even though Fox killed off half the lead duo with the demise of Nicole Beharie's Abbie Mills. How they'll atone to fans for that remains a mystery.

Why, oh why, did Abbie have to die?

In an upfront conference call last week, Fox chief executive officer Dana Walden said, "There were a variety of factors. It was not a decision that we wanted to make initially. We ended up being put in a situation where that was a decision that needed to be made."

That explains absolutely nothing.

NBC

Sorry, Debra Messing fans. NBC pulled the plug on The Mysteries of Laura after two seasons, leaving the audience dangling with a cliffhanger.

Still in love, Laura Diamond had rushed to stop her ex-husband from proposing to his new girlfriend. Laura was moments too late. Oooo. What now?

Cancellation, that's what. Sorry, fans. The ratings weren't all that bad, but NBC didn't own the show. It's a Warner Bros. property.

Other shows gone to the video graveyard in the sky include Best Time Ever With Neil Patrick Harris, Crowded, Game of Silence, Hannibal, Heartbeat, Heroes: Reborn, Mr. Robinson, The Player, Telenovela, Truth Be Told and Undateable.

Series that got invited back include American Ninja Warrior, America's Got Talent, Aquarius, Blindspot, Celebrity Apprentice, Shades of Blue, Grimm, Law & Order: SVU, Superstore, Little Big Shots, The Biggest Loser, The Blacklist, The Carmichael Show, The Night Shift and The Voice.

Also returning are Chicago Fire, Chicago PD and Chicago Med.

But wait! Prolific producer Dick Wolf (the Law & Order franchise) isn't finished with Chicago just yet. Chicago Justice will join three other Chicago-based dramas in the fall.

Also on the horizon is the Blacklist spin-off, The Blacklist: Redemption.

Still in limbo: Hollywood Game Night.

THE CW

In an unprecedented move for a broadcast network -- albeit a mini-network that only broadcasts two hours a night Monday through Friday -- The CW granted early renewals to every show on its current schedule. Then, as mentioned above, big sister CBS did corporate little sister CW a big favor by shipping over Supergirl for its second season.

The CW plans to spread out its lineup across the fall, midseason and summer.

Back for more will be Reign, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries.

Also returning are Jane the Virgin, The Flash, iZombie, Arrow, The 100 and The Originals.

Note: Containment, which The CW labeled a "limited series," was indeed limited. It won't be back. And Beauty & the Beast will air its fourth and final season beginning June 2.

America's Next Top Model, which ran for 22 seasons (since 2003) on UPN and its successor The CW, was canceled in December, then picked up by VH1 without Tyra Banks as host. She'll remain as executive producer.

Style on 05/24/2016

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