Canceled!

In television, no series is ever safe. No matter how buzzed-about the pilot episode is, how dedicated the fans are or how good those first few seasons were, a handful of lackluster episodes and a plummet in ratings can result in a swift send-off. Many a good show has been unceremoniously dumped, without so much as a "goodbye" -- story lines unresolved, characters left in limbo.

The networks have announced which shows for the 2011-2012 season are getting the axe. Some are old favorites past their prime, others are newbies that never found a following (or had no business getting picked up by the network in the first place). I had just heard that NBC's "Awake" was a must-see, and sadly, it's on the list.

Among them are also some of the shows that appeared to be the most promising at the fall season's onset, such as "Pan Am" and "Terra Nova." I watched the first episode of each but wasn't able to stick with them, and I suspect that others did the same -- so it's really no surprise that they're over. You never know what will turn out to be really great and what will falter come episode two.

Now that most shows have wrapped up for the season (or the series) or have finales within the next couple of weeks, I have concluded that out of all the new 2011-2012 series, "New Girl" is the only one that earned a permanent place on my weekly TV schedule. Once the show truly hit stride around episode six, it provided consistent laughs (Schmidt gets the best lines), lovable characters that developed throughout the season, and one covetable ensemble after another from star Zooey Deschanel. The series finale last Tuesday left things exactly where they needed to be to keep fans looking forward to season two.

The list of cancellations contains few shocking revelations, but I am left scratching my head over this: how did "Smash" escape purgatory? That, however, is a whole other discussion.

Did your favorite show get canceled? Tell me about it.