HBO Shows That Were Canceled After Just One Season

HBO has long been home to some of the most exciting TV series around. From the gritty real-world drama of "The Wire" to the high fantasy and political intrigue of "Game of Thrones," there's no shortage of long-form series that you could spend multiple weekends binging your way through. At the end of the day, though, TV is a numbers game. Getting the number of hits that HBO has means throwing dozens of shows at the wall and seeing what sticks.

That's not to say a show's longevity is a sure sign of its success. Some of the best shows on HBO Max are only one season long. It's just that for every series like "The Sopranos," there are half a dozen more shows that could have become something great if they'd only stuck around a little longer. HBO has canceled seemingly countless shows after just one season. Some failed to connect with a significant audience, but plenty of others were casualties of HBO's ever-shifting business practices. Here's a look through the highs and lows of HBO's single-season series that were apparently never meant to be.

In another universe "The Nevers" might have fared better. The series was set to be creator Joss Whedon's return to television after more than a decade of focusing on "Avengers" movies and the ill-fated 2017 cut of "Justice League." After bidding against Netflix for the show, HBO ordered "The Nevers" straight-to-series in 2018, but the show's troubles began before it ever made it to air.

Whedon left "The Nevers" in 2020 amidst a sea of troubling accusations. First Whedon's ex-wife Kai Cole published a piece in The Wrap accusing the writer and director of being a hypocrite who didn't come close to living up to the feminist ideals that had long been associated with him and his work. Then Ray Fisher came forward on X, formerly known as Twitter, with allegations that Whedon had transformed the set of "Justice League" into an unwelcome and outright hostile environment.

It's hard to imagine that Whedon's reputation didn't impact the success of "The Nevers." Set in Victorian London, the series follows a group of people called the Touched. All of them exhibit borderline magical powers with a sci-fi twist. Ultimately, HBO canceled the series halfway through its first season and, as part of Warner Brothers' ruthless cost-cutting strategy, it removed "The Nevers" from its streaming platform. The concluding six episodes of the season, which were managed by showrunner Philippa Goslett in Whedon's place, eventually saw the light of day on Tubi. The show might not become a cult classic like "Firefly," but it was a promising introduction to a new world that would've been great to explore further.

What could be funnier than World War III? The threat of total global chaos has been the stuff of nightmares for decades, but that didn't stop HBO from trying to mine the concept for laughs back in 2015. "The Brink" stars Jack Black as Foreign Service Officer Alex Talbot, Tim Robbins as Secretary of State Walter Larson, and Pablo Schreiber as Navy pilot Zeke Tilson. The unlikely trio is brought together thanks to the looming threat of nuclear annihilation, but they might be the least prepared people on the planet to prevent another global war.

Thanks in large part to the performances of the lead actors, "The Brink" actually had a strong start. The first season ran for ten episodes, and before those had finished airing, HBO announced in July 2015 that it was renewing the series for a second season. Despite this, disaster struck "The Brink" later on.

In October — just three months after "The Brink" was greenlit for a second season — HBO changed directions. The network released a statement saying, "After evaluating our schedule and our programming needs, we unfortunately decided we cannot give 'The Brink' the attention it deserves for a second season" (per Deadline).

The terrifying stories of early 20th century writer H.P. Lovecraft have become ripe source material for a plethora of different adaptations. Lovecraft's lore about cosmic gods and madness-inducing dark beings has become the basis for everything from movies to tabletop role-playing games. Few of the adaptations, however, have been as entertaining and ambitious as HBO's "Lovecraft Country."

The series follows Atticus Freeman (Jonathan Majors) as he searches for his father. His journey unites him with Letitia Lewis (Jurnee Smollett) and his uncle George Freeman (Courtney B. Vance). Together they travel through 1950s America, and the show brilliantly marries the horrors of American racism and Lovecraft's otherworldly beings.

Getting all the elements of a show to come together successfully is a herculean task, and plenty of shows get canceled because they fail to do anything new or make a real impact in the industry. That's not the case with "Lovecraft Country." The first season of the series took home eighteen Emmy nominations. Vance won the Emmy for best supporting actor in a drama series, and the show also won the Emmy for best sound editing. Despite its critical success, "Lovecraft Country" was doomed to be a one-season series, and HBO announced the cancellation in July 2021. There were likely many factors that contributed to the end of the show, but one rumor that swelled in the wake of the cancellation was that the working environment on the show was extremely difficult for everyone involved in the production.

"Minx" stars Ophelia Lovibond as Joyce, a young second-wave feminist determined to make a mark on the world. The series was created by Ellen Rapoport, a screenwriter whose other recent credits include "Clifford the Big Red Dog" and "Desperados." Set in the 1970s, "Minx" follows Joyce as she sets out to create the first erotic magazine targeted at women.

Most shows that face an early cancellation are doomed to disappear into obscurity, but "Minx" is one of those rare outliers that managed to earn itself a second chance. That's due in part to the strange circumstances surrounding its cancellation. Thanks to an overwhelmingly positive reception from critics, HBO renewed "Minx" for a second season in May 2022, just two months after its debut. In December of that year, just as the second season of "Minx" was wrapping its filming, HBO announced that the show would be canceled and pulled from its streaming platform. It was all part of Warner Brothers' relentless cost-cutting efforts, but it wasn't the end of the story for "Minx."

In January 2023, fans of the show were shocked and delighted to learn that it was moving networks after being picked up by Starz. "Minx" aired a second season on its new home network in late 2023. The season 2 finale dropped in September, and fans have been avidly awaiting news of season 3 ever since.

It's not often that debut novels become breakout successes, but the story of Audrey Niffenegger's "The Time Traveler's Wife" really is a triumphant one. Published in 2003, the novel tells the story of Henry DeTamble, a librarian who has a rare genetic disorder that causes him to unpredictably travel through time. Henry often ends up jumping to moments that are tied to important people in his life, and that makes his relationship with his wife Clare Anne Abshire extremely complicated.

"The Time Traveler's Wife" was first adapted into a movie starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams in 2009. HBO's TV adaptation didn't come around until 2022, but it got off to a promising start with Steven Moffat — the showrunner behind "Sherlock" and nearly half a dozen seasons of "Doctor Who" — attached to the project. Unfortunately, trouble began brewing the moment the series hit the air.

Critics almost universally panned the show, and one of the biggest problems might have actually been how closely the show followed the book's story. Clare first meets Henry on one of his time-traveling trips, but in her timeline, she's just a child while Henry is an adult man. The discomforting age gap might be a little easier to get past on the page than it is on the screen. HBO canceled the series shortly after the season finale, but a dedicated group of fans started a campaign to save the show. So far they haven't been successful, but watch this space. 

"Camping" began its life as a six-episode British miniseries that debuted in 2016. We're all familiar with at least one short-lived British comedy that found significantly more popularity when it was recreated in the States. "Camping" didn't become a second "The Office," but it did have all the right pieces in place to potentially become a smash hit.

HBO's take on the series is overloaded with talent in front of the camera and behind the scenes and is headed by two Emmy-nominated writers. Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner made a name for themselves while working on "Girls," and they brought that same energy to "Camping." The series stars Jennifer Garner and David Tennant as Kathryn and Walt, a couple who want to have a relaxing weekend trip to celebrate Walt's 45th birthday. However, celebration just isn't in the cards for the two of them, and their camping trip quickly flies off the rails.

It's pretty easy to imagine a version of reality where "Camping" took off and won multiple seasons, but sadly that wasn't the case. The series never pulled the ratings it needed to be a smash success. Today you won't even find it on HBO's streaming platform. In the lead-up to HBO Max and Discovery+ combining into a single platform, parent company Warner Bros. made the decision to remove "Camping" from its catalog.

There are plenty of one-season shows that got canceled way too early and eventually picked up a cult audience that kept some small flame of love for the show alive. That's not the case with "The High Life." The show has the ingredients of a cult classic — a unique premise, a distinctive visual style, and some truly fantastic comedy writing — but it's faded almost entirely into obscurity.

Released in 1996, but set in the '50s, the eight episodes of "The High Life" follow the misadventures of Emmett Wheeler (Robert Joy) and Earl Holloway (Mark Wilson). Emmett and Earl are always willing to go to extreme lengths to try and earn a little extra cash, and each episode of the series shows off another of their harebrained schemes — some of which would feel right at home in a season of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."

The dark comedy wasn't the only thing that set "The High Life" apart from other shows of the time. "I wanted it to have a film noir-ish look, something I was certain TV audiences were clamoring for," creator Adam Resnick told Vulture in 2012, adding, "Wow, when I say it out loud, what the f*** was I thinking?" Despite, or perhaps because of, the show's strangeness, it debuted to solid ratings and mixed, but generally positive reviews. Ultimately some behind-the-scenes issues with the production and changing leadership at HBO cut "The High Life" short, and today it's genuinely difficult to track down.

Almost everyone knows George Clooney the actor, but Clooney has also sat in the director's chair a handful of times throughout his career. His very first directing credit came in 2002 with "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," and three years later he followed that up by directing half a season — five episodes in total – of the television series "Unscripted" for HBO. Clooney also worked as a producer on "Unscripted" alongside Steven Soderbergh, and the series was their follow-up to a short-lived HBO satire called "K Street."

"Unscripted" technically isn't a reality TV show, but it comes close. It stars Krista Allen, Bryan Greenberg, and Jennifer Hall — all playing themselves — and it explores their life as struggling up-and-coming actors. It veers away from reality with the introduction of other guest stars playing characters and plenty of improvised scenes that get played up for laughs.

While an intriguing enough concept, "Unscripted" didn't pick up enough attention to carry itself into a second season. The lackluster, and sometimes downright harsh, reviews of the show probably did it no favors. A reviewer for The A.V. Club succinctly described the series as, "The TV equivalent of junk food: wildly addictive, yet almost wholly without substance."

"Vinyl" is a period drama made for fans of rock n' roll. It stars Bobby Cannavale as Richie Finestra, the record executive behind the American Century label. Richie is on a quest to come out of the '70s at the very top of the music industry, and his work puts him in contact with some of the greatest musicians of that generation. The series premiered in February 2016, and HBO granted a second season immediately after the pilot made the air. Several months later HBO reversed course, and "Vinyl" was no more.

The show had fairly positive reviews and garnered two Emmy nominations. So what went wrong? Some of the biggest selling points for "Vinyl" might have been its undoing. The show was created by Rich Cohen, Mick Jagger, and Martin Scorsese, the latter of whom also directed the pilot. Those are some big names, but that also meant the series came with a big price tag, and HBO reportedly spent $100 million on the first season alone. Since it wasn't necessarily a huge success, coming back for a second season probably seemed like a poor investment. Scorsese has said that he believes the show would have done better if he'd stuck around to direct all ten episodes, but the world will unfortunately never know.

"Gordita Chronicles" is a comedy series with real heart that met a tragic fate. Debuting in 2022, the series tells the story of Carlota 'Cucu' Castelli. Carlota's family moved from the Dominican Republic to Miami, Florida in the 1980s, and the show examines that transition and Carlota's childhood through the narration of her older self. Carlota may grow up to be a reporter, but her childhood was never purely smooth sailing.

"Gordita Chronicles" received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics and audiences alike. HBO announced the cancellation in July 2022, writing in a statement that, "Live-action kids and family programming will not be part of our programming focus in the immediate future." The sudden change in direction at HBO came as a huge surprise to the people working on "Gordita Chronicles." Executive producer Brigitte Muñoz-Liebowitz told Rolling Stone, "It was a shock because we were working to start shooting [Season 2] a few weeks later."

Fans of the show were heartbroken, and their hearts broke again in December 2022. In the wake of the Warner Bros. and Discovery merger, there was yet another change coming to "Gordita Chronicles." HBO announced that the series would be removed from its streaming platform, and today only the most dedicated fans can track it down online.

"The Idol" is one of the most recent HBO shows to get the ax after just one season, but that may have been the plan all along. The series stars Lily-Rose Depp as pop singer Jocelyn who's recently lost her mother and is now finding her career struggling nearly as much as her mental health. In her time of need, Jocelyn turns to the wrong person — the less-than-reputable club owner Tedros, played by Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye. The show sees Jocelyn teetering on the edge of self-destruction and clearly pulls inspiration from the tragic stories of other real-life pop stars.

The Weeknd co-created the show with Reza Fahim and Sam Levinson, the creator of "Euphoria." Despite the solid stars and writers involved in the production, "The Idol" proved polarizing from the very beginning and earned more than a handful of lackluster reviews. While "The Idol" definitely found some fans, it wasn't anywhere near as popular as "Euphoria." Whether or not HBO ever hoped for the series to get a second season, the official cancellation announcement came in August 2023.