Showtime revived the former ABC series "Twin Peaks" after more than 20 years off the air. The reboot follows a recent tradition of bringing back cult classics and beloved series canceled-too-soon.
Firefly/Serenity
Fox canceled "Firefly" after one season in 2003. The network ran all 14 episodes, but some appeared out of order of the original sequence.
Fans never gave up on Captain Malcolm Reynolds and his ragtag crew. Two years after the show's cancelation, creator Joss Whedon and Universal Pictures produced a follow-up feature film called "Serenity" (named after Reynolds' ship). All the original cast members reprised their roles for the movie.
The series also sparked comic books and a role-playing game. "Firefly" has appeared on numerous "Canceled-Too-Soon" and "Top Cult TV Show" lists. The original cast members attend many of the "Firefly" panels and gatherings at conventions around the world.
Veronica Mars
"Veronica Mars" aired three seasons across two separate networks, UPN and The CW, before the latter canceled the show in 2007. Creator Rob Thomas had several storylines in mind for a fourth season and released a trailer on the third season DVD for a show with the working title, "Veronica in the FBI."
Thomas returned to the "Mars" universe six years later with a movie script. He and the show's stars Kristen Bell launched a historic Kickstarter campaign on March 13, 2013 to raise $2 million for a "Veronica Mars" movie. The fans, a.k.a. Marshmallows, obliterated the original goal and raised more than $5.7 million dollars within a month. The project remains the second-fastest Kickstarter to reach $1 million, according to ABC News.
The "Veronica Mars" movie premiered in AMC theaters a year and a day after the Kickstarter campaigned launched. Thomas has written two follow-up novels to the movie and star Ryan Hansen created a spin-off web series called "Play It Again, Dick," which features his "Veronica Mars" co-stars.
Arrested Development
"Arrested Development" won six Emmys, including Outstanding Comedy Series, during its three-season run on Fox. The network canceled the show in 2006, and creator Mitchell Hurwitz declined Showtime's offer to continue the show at a lower budget.
Hurwitz then announced at the 2011 The New Yorker Festival in October that he planned to bring back "Arrested Development" for a limited series run and a full-length movie. Netflix revived the series a month later for a fourth season, originally ordering 10 episodes. The video-streaming service ultimately released 15 episodes all at once on May 16, 2013.
"Arrested Development" star Will Arnett confirmed a fifth season on Netflix in August. "It's gonna happen. We don't know when, but it is going to happen," Arnett told Jimmy Fallon on "The Tonight Show." Hurwitz also continues to work on a movie script, but 20th Century Fox has not given the film a green light yet.
Community
The "Community" battle cry "Six Seasons and a Movie" almost came to an end when NBC canceled the ratings-challenged comedy series after five seasons. Hulu momentarily restored fans' hope when the streaming service entered talks to mount a sixth season, but later dropped out.
Yahoo! Screen eventually saved "Community" in a last-minute deal with Sony Pictures Television for a 13-episode sixth season. The deal came just three hours before cast members' contracts expired with Sony. The series will return in early 2015, but a few cast members will be missing.
Yvette Brown Nicole backed out of the upcoming season for personal reasons. Recurring cast member Jonathan Banks also exited due to his role on the "Breaking Bad" spin-off "Better Call Saul." "Community" said goodbye to series regulars Donald Glover and Chevy Chase in season five.
The Killing
"The Killing" has survived two cancelations to reach a fourth and final season. AMC originally canceled the drama series, based off the Danish show "Forbrydelsen (The Crime)," after two seasons in June 2012. AMC and Fox Television Studios negotiated a new deal in January 2013 to bring the show back for a third season.
AMC again canceled "The Killing" after the third season in Sept. 2013, but Netflix saved the show for a second time. The video-streaming service released the fourth and final season on Aug. 1, 2014. The last six episodes allowed the series to have a complete and proper finish.
Family Guy
High DVD sales and syndicated ratings prompted Fox to renew "Family Guy" for a fourth season in 2005. The renewal came four years after the network originally canceled the animated series. The show debuted to 22 million viewers in 1999 after Super Bowl XXXIII, but Fox frequently shifted or pre-empted the show during seasons two and three.
Creator Seth MacFarlane and his fellow voice actors all returned to "Family Guy" for season four, and the show has remained on the air 10 seasons later. In that time, the show also garnered the first Emmy nomination for an animated series in the Outstanding Comedy Series category in 2009. "The Flintstones" last received a similar nomination in 1961 for Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Humor.
Futurama
"Futurama" charted an unconventional course to achieve seven seasons of television. Fox aired the first four seasons of Matt Groening and David X. Cohen's animated series between 1999 and 2003. Similar to the early days of "Family Guy," the network also shuffled "Futurama" around the schedule.
Fox never officially canceled the show, but simply let production on the show cease. Comedy Central acquired the syndication rights in 2005. The cable channel helped produce four straight-to-DVD films that later became 16 original episodes for a fifth season in 2006.
A sixth season, containing 26 episodes, premiered four years later on Comedy Central. The seventh, and so far final season, premiered in June 2012 for another 26 episodes that wrapped up on Sept. 4, 2103. The "Futurama" gang will make at least one more appearance in an official crossover episode of "The Simpsons," Groening's other series. The episode will air on Nov. 9, 2014 on Fox.
24
"24" star Kiefer Sutherland made the "bittersweet" decision with Fox and the show's producers to end the award-winning series after eight seasons in 2010. The clock ran out on Sutherland's character Jack Bauer as he became a fugitive.
Talks of a movie persisted over the next three years until Fox announced it would revive "24" as a 12-episode miniseries. "24" creator Howard Gordon found a way for Jack to return, after living four years off the grid back, and Fox premiered the reboot series "24: Live Another Day" in May 2014.
The summer TV event proved successful for Fox, but the network has no plans for another season. Sutherland and the other executive producers have all expressed interest in continuing the story. Gordon suggested a possible storyline that may not include Bauer, who the Russians finally took custody of in the closing minutes of the "Live Another Day" finale.
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