There are many factors to keeping a show on the air. Fans think that if a show manages to get consistently good ratings and works for its target demographic, everything else should be fixable. But that's not exactly been the case for modern television. From miscommunications and petty power struggles to a confused brand image, some terrific shows have been canceled for some really bizarre reasons in recent history.

So, if any go-to comfort watches ended up canceled in the last decade, chances are that low ratings wasn't the only reason, or maybe it wasn't the reason at all. Here are 10 TV shows that were canceled for the strangest reasons.

UPDATE: 2022/09/07 22:00 EST BY SHAWN S. LEALOS

It never seems to fail that beloved shows are canceled before their time, year after year. In 2022, things became even stranger when Discovery purchased Warner Bros., and made huge sweeping cancelations, including axing the movie Young Justice — the second time this has happened to the DC cartoon. The reason for the cancelations was to save money, and in some cases, to use as reported tax write-offs, continuing the trend of canceling shows for the strangest of reasons. It also doesn't seem to matter if it is a new leadership team or the same group that commissioned the show to begin with, it seems that popularity doesn't seem to factor in to whether a TV show sees its story finished or not.

American Gods

Ash vs. Evil Dead was beloved by Sam Raimi fans but only lasted three seasons. That is all American Gods lasted as well.

The problem with American Gods all happened behind the scenes. The first season was, by far, the best. However, Bryan Fuller left after that season as showrunner when he couldn't get more money to make Season 2. Starz brought in Jesse Alexander as the new showrunner, but the network fired him before the season finished shooting. Charles Eglee took over in Season 3, but while he stuck around, Starz canceled the series before it could finish the story. It seemed strange that just when a showrunner stuck around, Starz canceled it, but the constant changes hurt fan retention.

Young Justice

One of the most infamous cancelations in animated television history came when the Cartoon Network canceled Young Justice. This happened before the Apokolips storyline could conclude, and the network canceled it to make room for other shows, including Teen Titans Go! Soon, the reason was discovered.

Cartoon Network canceled Discovery reportedly canceled it again after buying Warner Bros.

Roseanne

Roseanne was one of the most beloved sitcoms in television history. The show lasted for nine seasons, and while it ended controversially in 1996, it remained engrained as a beloved iconic TV show. It returned for a 10th season in 2018, and that is when things fell apart for the show.

The original cast returned, and the show picked up where the last ended, showing how everyone was living since the show's conclusion two decades earlier. However, Roseanne Barr made a controversial joke on Twitter, and when the fallout included people leaving the show, ABC fired Barr and canceled Roseanne after only one revival season. However, the rest of the cast moved on with the new show called The Conners.

GLOW

Arriving on Netflix in 2017, GLOW told the story of the rise and fall of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, a professional wrestling promotion that gained popularity in the 1980s. Based on the true story, the show ended up as an immediate hit for Netflix and ran for three seasons.

Both Netflix and the GLOW creative team had another season planned, but COVID-19 shut down production across the world. While there were many shows that picked up and kept going once production started again, Netflix chose to cancel the production, even though it was already filming the fourth season. With so many shows allowed to pick up again, it didn't make sense that an award-winning show like GLOW had to end.

Airwolf

During its four seasons on the air, Airwolf was one of the most popular action-adventure shows going. Airing on CBS, Jan-Michael Vincent, Ernest Borgnine, and Alex Cord told the story of espionage during the Cold War with the crew of the high-tech military helicopter, Airwolf, at the forefront.

After three seasons, CBS canceled the series because of a ratings drop. However, Vincent's real-life addiction issues reportedly caused the actual cancelation. USA Network picked up the series for a fourth season, seeing the popularity and hoping to help it reach syndication level. The problem is that USA Network replaced the entire cast and almost all the action scenes was from stock footage, meaning the show's fans weren't along for the ride.

Angel

The spin-off of Angel’s audience had doubled in its last season. In fact, Joss Whedon, the mind behind the show, was also taken aback by the news, and it was eventually revealed that Whedon had pushed the network for an early renewal, but they didn't go for it.

WB didn’t want to work with the pressure at that point, especially because they were also looking at some other promising pilots. To put it simply, there was a power play involved which reportedly went wrong; plus WB was rumored to be not great at keeping the writers in the loop of which stars would stay on for the next season. Nevertheless, miscommunication and power struggles seem like terrible reasons to cancel a successful Buffy-verse show.

Clone High

The adult animated comedy got in hot water after a 2003 article which depicted Gandhi being beaten up as part of a workout. Audiences in India were outraged after they became aware of the concept for this MTV cartoon, even though it wasn’t being aired in the country at that point.

Moreover, MTV execs were reportedly touring India at that time and faced threats of having its broadcasting license revoked in the country, which was a major market for the network. MTV offered an apology and canceled the show. Creator Miller Christopher did seek to launch another season without Gandhi, but it never got greenlit.

Deadwood

Deadwood wasn’t canceled but it simply wasn't picked up for a fourth season. There was also a vicious but bizarre power struggle behind the show’s end. David Milch wanted to give the show a proper farewell and reportedly demanded a 12-episode final season, but the studio wanted Milch to invest his attention on his next outing, John From Cincinnati.

With all that said, one of the most pressing reasons for the cancelation was likely HBO’s brand overhaul, which happened around the mid-2000s. As weird as it sounds, HBO was really steering towards prestige television, and the slow-paced Western, though well-received, wasn't cut out for HBO anymore.

Veronica Mars

This was probably one of the most heartbreaking cancellations, and what makes it worse is that the stellar show was probably canceled because it was ahead of its time. Despite good ratings, this teen mystery drama with a noir tone was reportedly canceled because it didn’t hold to one particular genre.

It wasn't a light teen drama, like Breaking Bad or something as effusive like Game of Thrones could thrive. In a way, Veronica Mars was the victim of short-sightedness and was just a few years too early. Luckily for fans of the show, the show did a get revival in 2019.

Freaks And Geeks

Though scheduling was said to be the cause for the cancelation of this great teen comedy, the real reason is most likely the creative gap between the makers and the producers. Judd Apatow, who was the executive producer of the show, often talked about how NBC didn’t quite grasp the significance of the show’s tonality, its underdog protagonists, and also its cerebral humor.

It’s strange that the execs would want the kids to be cooler than they are when the entire premise of Freaks and Geeks was about misfits and uncool teens. The show sadly filmed 18 episodes but aired only 12.