It has not been a good year for those shows you like. If you mostly watch crime procedurals like CSI, NCIS, and Blue Bloods, or Yellowstone-adjacent shows, then you’re probably fine; otherwise, there’s a good chance you’ve felt the loss of a favorite show.
The single biggest culprit is The CW. Following a purchase by Nester Media, the network is dumping almost all of its original programming: ten series were canceled outright, with The Flash, Nancy Drew, and Riverdale all ending, allegedly on their own terms. Surviving shows like Kung Fu, Superman & Lois, and Walker aren’t looking terribly secure.
Meanwhile, streamers have shown themselves far less likely to hang on to shows that aren’t hitting whatever numbers are most relevant at any given time. Netflix, for example, is dropping several shows; and then there’s HBO, which has adopted a cancel-then-dump-it strategy, being less worried about completing stories than with dumping underperforming shows into the nearest well.
There also seem to have been an inordinate number of decently-performing LGBTQ-adjacent shows canceled this year (the phenomenon getting its own hashtag, #CancelYourGays). It’s a little hard to quantify that given everything that’s gotten canceled this year, but the end result is that next season is going to be a lot less queer. For 2023, I’m going to save myself the heartbreak and only watch old shows that I know ended on their own terms. Here’s what was canceled this year.