One TV Season Only: the 2000s by GoodmanDL

In 2001, NBC attempted to follow friends with this sitcom in which the dating life of a Minor-League sportscaster (Breckin Meyer) is illustrated through sports highlights presented by Fox Sports Net hosts. It drew lower ratings than Friends reruns.

This 2009 NBC drama was based around the biblical story of David, Silas Benjamin (Ian McShane) attempts to maintain rule over the country of Gilboa alongside his wife Rose (Susanna Thompson), and his troubled children (Sebastian Stan, Allison Miller). Silas faces-off with the industrialist Willam Cross (Dylan Baker) while worry about losing God’s favor.

Supernatural show creator Eric Kripke noted that he created a great pilot for this 2003 WB series but had no real stories for other episodes. John Clayton (Travis Fimmel) long disappeared and held captive by his Industrialist uncle (Mitch Pileggi) escapes and runs feral across New York city while helping Detective Jane Porter (Sarah Wayne Callies) fight crime in the urban jungle.

Joel (Bill English) is a straight-laced assistant manager at a Norwegian Furniture store living with his brother (Sam Huntington) and their lazy, self-absorbed roommate Nick (Nick Kroll). Episodes focus on Joel’s interspecies relationship, Nick’s dissertation on Post-Primitive society, and poor metaphors for race relations. No word on whether ABC saved 15 percent by canceling this sitcom.

Initially announced under the name “Let’s Rob Mick Jagger”, in this 2007 ABC Sitcom a gang of misfits led by Eugene Gurkin (Donal Logue) attempt to rob various celebrities. Guest starring as themselves: Mick Jagger, Kelly Ripa, Dustin Diamond, Sally Jessy Raphael and Ray Romano.

Originally a 36-part web series created by Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, NBC recut the short segments into 6 one-hour long episodes only to cancel this show after airing one episode. Dylan (Bitsie Tulloch) is a magazine editor and video blogger on the titular social networking website - one of the several twentysomething artists coming of age in the digital generation.

Created by Jerry Bruckheimer, this 2005 NBC Military Drama centers around former Delta Force operator Major James Tisnewski (Benjamin Bratt) and Col. Eli McNulty (Dennis Hopper) as they plan covert missions for the Special Operations Division (SOD). Tisnewski and McNulty occupy offices far larger than the smith has ever seen in the titular Pentagon location.

Billy Grant (Rob Lowe) is the inhouse physician at a hotel casino – where his vow to uphold the Hippocratic oath puts him at odds with the hotel's manager, Tommy Canterna. (Joe Pantoliano). Other castmembers of this 2004 CBS Drama included Sarah Lancaster as a student/blackjack dealer, Tom Sizemore as the Casino Host and Amy Adams, who got fired during production.

Elizabeth is a high-high powered attorney in Providence. She drinks hard, she drives fast, she sleeps in her office and she never merely talks when she can solicit fear. She’s willing to go unimaginable lengths to defend her clients putting her at odds with the rest of her firm. Name this unsuccessful 2008 Fox legal drama about a very bad wife that would help land star Julianna Margulies her very next role in a similar, yet much, much better show.

Jaye Tyler (Caroline Dhavernas) is a philosophy graduate, slacking away in a dead-end job as a sales clerk at the titular Niagara gift shop. She begins reluctantly conversing with various animal figurines, who provide cryptic instructions to help people in need on this 2004 Fox comedy/drama produced by Bryan Fuller.

Mick St. John (Alex O’Laughlin) begins a relationship with Beth Turner (Sophia Myles), a reporter he has been protecting from afar for twenty years. Together with businessman Josef Kostan (Jason Dohring) they work to uncover mysterious murders in this 2007 CBS Drama about a Vampire Private Investigator.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau stars as 400 year-old Dutch Soldier using his deep, personal knowledge of city history to solve crimes for the NYPD while also searching for the one true love that can make him mortal. Name this 2008 Fox drama with a notably gorgeous time-lapse title credit sequence.

Worried that her sensitive son Justin (Dan Byrd) will never fit in at his Wisconsin high school, Franny Tolchuk (Amy Pietz) arranges to take in an international exchange student that she hopes will make him popular. Instead, they get Raja (Adhir Kalyan), a Muslim boy from Pakistan. Cultural misunderstandings ensue. Name this heartwarming 2007-8 CW sitcom.

Created by Darren Star, this 2000-1 WB sitcom posited that the drama behind the scenes of a Primetime Teen Soap would often be more interesting than the show itself. Hunter Fallow (Irene Molloy) and Kohl Sudduth (Quentin King) played thinly veiled takes on Shannen Doherty and Luke Perry for the titular show-within-a-show whose cast also included Bonnie Summerville, Lindsay Sloane, William Ragsdale, and Kyle Howard as Dave the Stand-in.

"Everything we seize, we keep. Everything we keep, we use." Van Ray (Peter Facinelli) and Deaqon Hayes (Bill Bellamy) are two mismatched cops working for Billie Chambers (Tiffani Thiessen) – and going undercover in the criminal underworld of Los Angeles. Produced by McG, this 2002-3 Fox action/crime drama featured fancy cinematography, pyrotechnics, exotic cars, numerous guest appearances and was eventually canceled due to it’s $2.6 million per episode cost.

This 2000 NBC Animated series centers over a bet relating to the three titular figures voiced in order by James Garner, Alan Cumming and French Stewart. Can a beer-drinking, porn-watching auto plant worker from Michigan prove humanity is worth saving?

Based upon a novel of the same name, the main character is an editor of a self-help books trying to use a new list-making system to help her romantic life. Planned as a linchpin for the post-Monday Night Football schedule, the show actually failed before promotional materials could be rescinded. Identify this 2006 ABC sitcom starring Heather Graham that was canceled after airing only one episode.

Based on a popular BBC series, this American iteration was set in Nevada. Ripley Holden (Lloyd Owen) and his wife (Madchen Amick) hope to run a casino, but must enter into a financial partnership with the rival Nicky Fontana. (Hugh Jackman) A murder investigation appeared likely to ensue. After just 2 episodes in 2007, CBS canceled this mystery drama musical.

On this 2003 UPN science-fiction drama, an NSA computer expert (Christopher Gorham) is accidentally injected with nanobots, which give him new superpowers and the ability to control technology with his brain. This titular ultimate human upgrade must now work as a special agent or risk being locked up as research.

On ABC, Complete Savages, Hot Properties, In Justice, Women’s Murder Club, the Goode Family and Surviving Suburbia. On Fox, Harsh Realm, FreakyLinks, Firefly, John Doe, Luis, Johnny Zero, Vanished, Justice, Standoff, The Wedding Bells, Brothers. On NBC, Mister Sterling, Medical Investigation, Law & Order: Trial by Jury, Conviction. On CBS, the Ellen Show, Robbery Homicide Division, the Ex List. Each of these short-lived shows (and this list is not all-inclusive) shared what circumstance prior to their deaths.