NBC Cancelled Shows
NBC's broadcast slate turns over regularly as underperformers are dropped. This is every NBC show with a cancelled verdict.
58 cancelled NBC shows · 8% renewal rate
NBC's biggest cancellations — and why they ended
1. Las Vegas
Las Vegas ran for five seasons on NBC and built a loyal enough audience to keep it going well past what many procedural-light dramas manage, but by the 2007-2008 season the numbers had eroded to the point where NBC simply couldn't justify renewing it. The show had always been more of a glossy guilty pleasure than prestige television, and that kind of entertainment is especially vulnerable when ratings soften, because there's no critical goodwill to offset the decline.
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2. Magnum P.I.
Magnum P.I. actually has an unusual story for a cancelled show, because it was technically cancelled twice. CBS pulled the plug after four seasons in 2022, only for NBC to pick it up and produce a fifth season. That kind of revival rarely ends well in the long run, and this one was no exception.
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3. Law & Order: Organized Crime
Law & Order: Organized Crime had a decent run by modern network standards, five seasons and 75 episodes built largely on the appeal of Christopher Meloni's return as Elliot Stabler after his abrupt exit from SVU more than a decade earlier. That nostalgia factor was real and it carried the show early, but nostalgia has a shelf life. By the time the series reached its fourth and fifth seasons, the initial excitement of seeing Stabler back had worn off, and the show needed to justify itself on its own dramatic terms. It struggled to do that consistently.
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4. My Name Is Earl
My Name Is Earl arrived at NBC in 2005 as a genuine hit, built on an original premise and anchored by Jason Lee's charm. The show about a small-time criminal trying to make amends for his past misdeeds had the kind of premise that could sustain itself across seasons, and audiences responded. But by its fourth season, something had shifted. The ratings had begun their inevitable decline, as they do for most network comedies that run long enough. By 2009, when the show wrapped, it was pulling in numbers that no longer justified the production costs for NBC, which was facing tougher competition and changing viewing habits.
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5. Life
Life arrived on NBC with genuine promise. Damian Lewis played Charlie Crews, a detective exonerated after twelve years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, trying to rebuild his career and hunt for the people who framed him. The premise offered mystery, character depth, and the kind of serialized storytelling that was starting to appeal to network audiences in the mid-2000s. The show earned solid reviews and respectable ratings in its first season, landing it a second season renewal.
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6. Timeless
Timeless had all the ingredients for a cult hit: a sharp premise about a team chasing a time-traveling villain through history, solid writing, and a devoted fanbase that rallied loudly when NBC pulled the plug after season one. The network gave it a second season after fan pressure, which was unusual and suggested genuine uncertainty about its future. But those twenty-six episodes never found the broad audience NBC needed to justify its production costs. Time-travel shows are notoriously expensive, and the serialized mythology that appealed to core viewers often alienates casual viewers flipping through the dial. The show's ratings never climbed into the range that could anchor a network's schedule.
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7. Good Girls
Good Girls was a solid mid-tier performer for NBC, but it never quite became the breakout hit the network needed it to be. The show pulled respectable numbers in its first season, drawing viewers with its premise of suburban mothers turning to crime, but the ratings declined steadily as it continued. By season four, viewership had dropped significantly from the pilot, and the cost of production outweighed what NBC could justify spending on a show that wasn't consistently winning its time slot or generating the kind of cultural conversation that might have sustained it through weak ratings.
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8. Joey
Joey was always going to struggle in the shadow of its parent show. Friends had ended in 2004, and NBC quickly spun off Joey Tribbiani into his own series set in Los Angeles, banking on Matt LeBlanc's popularity and the character's established appeal. What the network hadn't reckoned with was that a spin-off doesn't automatically inherit its source material's audience or cultural moment. The show started with reasonable ratings but couldn't sustain them through its first season, and by the second year the decline was steep enough that cancellation became inevitable.
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9. The Night Shift
The Night Shift arrived during a period when broadcast networks were still experimenting with medical dramas that didn't follow the rigid procedural formula of older shows. The series found an audience interested in the lower-stakes, ensemble-driven storytelling of a hospital emergency department, and it held steady for its first two seasons on NBC. But by the third season, viewership had begun to slip noticeably, a pattern that intensified into season four. The network was watching a show that still had devoted fans but was no longer delivering the broad ratings that justified its production costs on a major broadcast network.
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10. Freaks and Geeks
Freaks and Geeks arrived on NBC in the fall of 1999 with immediate critical praise and a premise that felt genuinely fresh, even for a network comedy-drama. The show's documentary-style approach to 1980s suburban adolescence, built on a strong ensemble cast and creator Paul Feig's clear creative vision, earned it an 8.8 rating on IMDb that would have made most shows the envy of the schedule. Yet NBC pulled the plug after just eighteen episodes, cancelling what should have been the start of a long run.
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All cancelled NBC shows
Frequently asked
- How many shows has NBC cancelled?
- IsItRenewed currently tracks 58 NBC shows with a settled cancelled verdict. The list updates as new cancellations are confirmed.
- Does NBC cancel more shows than it renews?
- Of the 63 NBC shows that have faced a renew-or-cancel decision, 5 were renewed and 58 cancelled — a 8% renewal rate.
- What is the most popular cancelled NBC show?
- By current audience popularity, Las Vegas is the most popular NBC show with a cancelled verdict.
- Is a cancelled show ever revived?
- It happens, but rarely. A cancelled verdict reflects the current decision; if a show is picked up again, its verdict here changes to reflect that.