Predicting The Shows Most Likely To Be Canceled In 2025

Every season, as one TV year passes into the next, a handful of programs must fall just like the leaves from the trees. Whether they're sitcoms, dramas, reality shows, beloved animated series, or anything that lies in between, if they can't keep an audience coming back then they're gone. 2025 forced audiences to say goodbye to the Reagan family on "Blue Bloods" and close the door on 20 Squad after eight seasons of "S.W.A.T." The latter two cancellations caused quite a stir among the show's devoted fanbases; whether audiences will sit and endure the disappearance of a new batch of shows on the bubble is a matter of how powerful their reach is. But every year a new slate of shows debuts, and space must be made on the schedule for them.

While many major hits have already been renewed by their networks for the 2025-2026 season, a good handful of programs continue to hang in the balance. These are the shows that — whether because of programming gluts, poor ratings, a total lack of buzz, or other reasons — we're confident won't be coming back next year. While this isn't an exact science and it's quite possible that some of these series might end up surviving after all, we have a hunch that you won't see much more of them. Some of have had long runs, while others are brand new, with barely a season under their belts. But here's why all of them will likely end up in their networks' dustbins.

How cute is too cute? Take a dash of "Why Women Kill," a dab of "Desperate Housewives," and a step into Ryan Murphy's spiked, poisoned heels, and you get "Grosse Pointe Garden Society." The dramedy hones in on what's rotten in suburbia. In this case, what stinks are four members of a gardening club  — Birdie (Melissa Fumero), Catherine (Aja Naomi King), Brett (Ben Rappaport) and Alice (AnnaSophia Robb) — who are involved in the murder of one of their neighborhood cohorts. All four of them have ugly, tangled personal secrets which threaten to spill out, making the murder seem like child's play.

What also smells are the Nielsen ratings. "Grosse Point Garden Society" is putting up a 1.9 or less every week, and it's the lowest-rated scripted drama on NBC's schedule. Even worse — after airing four episodes, the network has moved the drama out of its cushy Sunday at 10:00 p.m. slot. It's been shifted to Fridays at 8 p.m. — against the ABC megahit "Shark Tank," and replacing NBC's successful Friday night sitcom block. While it might seem a perfect alternative to the news magazines that dominate that hour on other networks, it's not done "Grosse Point Garden Society" any favors. That's not a positive sign that this union of dirt-digging miscreants will make it past its first season — that's a hint that it might be canceled before it even debuts its last Season 1 episode.

This one has to be a heartbreaker for NBC. Trying to ride the coattails of its suddenly streaming-successful sister series "Suits," this years-later spin-off only features one of the mothership's original characters, Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht) — and he merely recurs on the program, popping in and out to guide the characters. Instead of focusing on corporate law like the original, "Suits: LA" is all about defending the rich, via entertainment law and criminal cases. 

Missing the chemistry between Harvey and his fake-it-until-you-make-it partner Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams), as well as its much stronger moral center, "Suits: LA" revolves around a betrayal between Ted Black (Stephen Amell) and his ex-partner Stuart Lane (Josh McDermitt). Ted is a nice guy, but he's not enough of a charmer to make the premise stick, and he doesn't have a strong enough system of partners to make you sit up and take notice yet.

All these differences meant that the show debuted high in the Nielsens, but has sunk lower each week, with its most recent outing as of this writing only hitting a 1.587. Only "Grosse Point Garden Society" is doing worse numbers on NBC's Sunday night schedule, with CBS obliterating them and ABC's reality programming putting up stiff competition. The show's renewal may come down to how expensive it is versus how many people are watching. We'll see if it manages to pull off the kind of trick Harvey himself would be proud of.

"The Hunting Party" is our long shot pick for cancellation; it's pulling in decent ratings as of this writing, racking up a solid 2.9 or above every week. If that were all that mattered in this television atmosphere, "NCIS: Hawai'i" would be celebrating another pick-up. Instead, other factors might result in "The Hunting Party" getting the axe. For example: it doesn't have a whole lot of buzz, and it's been a bad year for cop-based procedural series. With the entire One Chicago franchise waiting to be renewed, is it possible for "The Hunting Party" to get a second chance? Not as far as we can tell.

The show is centered on FBI agent Rebecca "Bex" Henderson (Melissa Roxburgh), who must team up with her ex-lover, Oliver (Nick Wechsler), to catch a whole lot of deadly serial killers. The world's worst have been unleashed on humanity once more after an explosion in an underground prison nestled within the FBI's Wyoming offices, and Bex must profile and catch them all before death and mayhem descend. It's doing well enough, but NBC has plenty of high-concept thrillers on its docket, and it might come down to whether "The Irrational" recovers from its downward ratings spiral. If it doesn't, NBC may renew "The Hunting Party" — or it may decide that it's not worth the cost to keep it. We're leaning toward cancellation.  

This is another long-shot cancellation, but "Dr. Odyssey" has mainly benefited from its cushy position between "9-1-1" and "Grey's Anatomy," to the point of looking very weak when it's removed from that hammock. It's tumbled from a 4.23 to a 2.66 — a terrible retention off "9-1-1," which continues to stay in the 4 million viewer camp. The only thing making it look like a decent bet for ABC is the fact that "Grey's Anatomy" is doing worse than "Dr. Odyssey" is, only managing just over a million viewers in its new time slot. The long-lived drama is waiting for a Season 22 renewal, and with ratings like "Odyssey" puts up, it's doubtful it will ever make it that far.

The show's numbers aren't entirely dire, so it's quite possible something positive will come of its on-the-bubble status. It's possible that ABC might move the show to 10 p.m. to see if the ratings for "Grey's" perk up again an hour earlier, and if it makes for a better lead-in series. Perhaps the soapy, cheesy, and sexy adventures of Max Bankman (Joshua Jackson) and his crew will keep audiences coming back for Season 2 — everyone loves a spectacle, after all, and the show sits comfortably tone-wise between "Grey's" and "9-1-1" perfectly. But when killer sharks and splashy crossovers don't move your audience, it's hard to see how they're going to make it past the Cancellation Bear, let alone the final weeks of March. But it might be worth watching if you liked "The Pitt."

"Poppa's House" is a perfectly pleasant cross-generational sitcom, featuring long-time TV vets from the Wayans family. It's got plenty of warm humor and a sharp sense of sass and spirit that makes it crackle when it threatens to get sappy. But its middling ratings haven't improved much on what the long-running "Bob Hearts Abishola" did in the same timeslot during its last season. It's losing a portion of the numbers that "The Neighborhood" is accruing every week, as well. 

With totals that are just middling and a lack of wide fan support for the series, it's quite possible CBS will take a gamble on another sitcom and hope that the upcoming final season of "The Neighborhood" will bolster a brand-new comedy sensation to life. In any event, at this juncture the network's hopes for its once-thriving Monday at 8 p.m. timeslot look pretty grim as the 2025-2026 season looms.

A few things might bolster "Poppa's House" to survival, however — the fact that it has a solid comic legacy in the Wayans family backing it, the honest reality that CBS needs a strong companion for "The Neighborhood" to send it off to syndication, and the simple truth that CBS owns the series. But if the network wants to bridge the gap between "The Neighborhood" and its perennial "NCIS" franchise, they might want to look elsewhere for a hit. 

Fox has been trying for weeks to get audiences to tune into "Going Dutch," promoting it heavily on YouTube with clips popping up as ads constantly. But in spite of the publicity blitz, it looks like the sitcom will be among the freshman series canned in 2025.

Its ratings haven't been stellar, and it's losing a portion of the numbers that its timeslot mate and fellow live-action Fox sitcom "Animal Control" is putting up every week. Its demo share has been a rollercoaster, first up and then down. Fox clearly saw this as a big vehicle for Denis Leary, perhaps hoping to position him for a Tim Allen-like hit that pits him against a younger generation — but that doesn't seem to be in the cards.

The sitcom is a classic fish-out-of-water tale in which Colonel Patrick Quinn (Leary) is demoted to the Netherlands, where his soldierly instincts are stymied by the fact that Garrison Stroopsdorf is a completely useless base with no strategic purposes. It draws the party-hearty, lazy types because of its amenities and lack of real danger. On top of that, his liaison at the base — and the woman he's replacing as commander– is his daughter, Maggie (Taylor Misiak). All this makes for a decent culture clash sitcom, but it's getting no love from its target audience.

Fox is currently suffering from an Animation Domination glut. With "Krapopolis" and "Universal Basic Guys" pre-renewed for next season, "American Dad!" coming back to the network in 2026, and stalwarts "The Simpsons," "Family Guy" and "Bob's Burgers" all likely to be renewed thanks to Hulu's symbiotic relationship with Fox, there's not a whole lot of room left on the schedule for more animated sitcoms. 

While Season 5 of "The Great North" is getting slightly worse ratings after a dismal Season 4, "Grimsburg" seems to be the most likely casualty of Fox's unrenewed animated sitcom slate. Looper predicted it would flop in 2024, a destiny it seems determined to fill in 2025. Lacking a strong pop cultural foothold, often coming off as a direct rip-off of "Sledge Hammer!," and lacking the fan cache that "The Great North" has, the series isn't clever about its police parodies, and doesn't stand out strongly enough among its brethren to make you want to watch more. Being one of the network's lowest-rated offerings also doesn't portend well for its future. 

Fox has a tendency to cancel its mid-season animated offerings frequently — everything from "Duncanville" to "HouseBroken" to "Bless the Harts" has met with the axe since they decided to air sitcoms as springtime fare — and "Grimsburg" has never made it off the bench as a fall offering. All this may mean it won't make it to 2026, but time will tell which of the shows fate will smile upon.

NBC has a heavy glut of procedurals going on, and "Brilliant Minds" — like "The Irrational" — isn't standing out as anything memorable, in spite of it being a similarly high concept procedural. The show's landing in a spot that might best be called decent, getting over 2 million live viewers an episode. 

That's landed it in a fairly decent spot, but it's hard to say if it's worth renewing at this point — especially with the entire slate of One Chicago dramas left to be refreshed with new deals. It's faced stiff competition from CBS' "NCIS" franchise, and naturally has taken a drubbing from "Monday Night Football" throughout the fall and winter months. As of press time it feels like a big question mark — especially with the "New Amsterdam" spin-off waiting in the wings for placement on the schedule and plenty of other medical procedurals around.

Zachary Quinto's charms are what keep audience members coming back to the series: he plays Dr. Oliver Wolf, a neurologist facing down bizarre conditions every week as he tries to lead an unruly team of interns on their rounds. Call it "Chicago Med" meets "Chicago Hope," but NBC might not be calling for Season 2 at this rate.

Jesse L. Martin could sell ice to Antarctic fishermen, but his drama about behavioral science and criminal cases has been dropping steadily in the ratings for the majority of its second season. While "The Irrational" is an undeniably interesting take on the procedural genre, its decline might make it a bad bet for future success. With plenty of detective stories on the network's front burner, it's likely it will be canceled.

Martin is Professor Alec Mercer, who finds himself working with his ex-wife, Marisa (Maahra Hill), for the FBI. Alec's talents are put to use profiling criminal assailants; a master of behavioral sciences, he only works to track down the most wicked and dangerous of criminals. He is a consultant and this is only his part-time job, but Alec often finds himself coping with much more than your average psychiatrist — while also dealing with feelings brought about by his ex's existence. 

The pull between Mercer's belief in what he's doing and what the facts tell him usually makes for interesting fodder — but while audiences tuned in for the season premiere, ratings have been sliding downward since. Even Dr. Mercer would be able to call this one — a likely cancellation, and the ending of his adventures.

An anthology series that breaks down one crime every hour, with a fresh cast taking on every single installment, "Accused" is a throwback to the olden days of television, when "Westinghouse Theatre" and other programs turned their airwaves over to one-and-done stage productions every week. But while thousands of people tuned in for such shows back in the day, "Accused" is barely averaging a million viewers every week. 

While it's definitely had a tough go of things, it had a promising start. The show's first episode got a post-NFL game boost, pulling in an estimated 8.71 million people. But between the SAG-AFTRA strikes, which kept it off the 2023-2024 schedule, and its early Tuesday timeslot, things have been on a downward slide since then. Losing over seven million viewers who first sampled the series so many months ago is never a good sign, and it hasn't gotten much positive press since then. 

The show's now on the bubble without a renewal, and when Fox has a megahit like "Doc" and a solid mid-season closer like "The Cleaning Lady" on the docket, don't expect to see much good come of this long wait for a reprieve. It will be a shame if it gets canceled, as it definitely brings an interesting premise to the table. But it doesn't look very good for the show, no matter which way you slice it.