Journey Planet 58 - Cancelled Too Soon

Day Break debuted on November 15, 2006 and was cancelled on December 15, with only six episodes aired. The remaining seven episodes were eventually posted on ABC’s website and in 2008, TV One aired all 13 episodes. The show starred Taye Diggs as Brett Hopper, Moon Bloodgood as Rita Shelten, Victoria Pratt as Andrea Battle, Adam Baldwin as Chad Shelten, Meta Golding as Jennifer Mathis, and Ramón Rodriguez as Damien Ortiz. Hopper is framed for the murder of an Assistant District Attorney and tries to clear himself and find the culprits while living a Groundhog Day existence. The series originally aired on ABC in the U.S. The show is available on DVD, but it is not currently available for streaming.

When Steven Silver mentioned that he was looking for people to write an essay about television/streaming shows that had been cancelled too soon, one show immediately came to my mind even though it was cancelled a relatively long time ago (2006) and, as far as I know, doesn’t have a fan base or was even very popular. It never got enough viewers; that’s why it was cancelled after 6 episodes. I believe it represents a perfect storm of factors that made its cancellation extremely memorable and eminently suitable for a write-up.

Two thousand six was a primitive time when the TV networks were still largely in control of viewing content. The show Lost had ended its second season in May and had demonstrated how profitable a continuing, non-episodic show that 86