Freakazoid, great cartoon but was heavily sabotaged by Warner executives and so it was forced to be cancelled… Of course I say that but looking at what they did to Animaniacs and Tiny Toons, I rather have few but great Freakazoid episodes instead of a complete failure.

OG Star Trek fits the description. It’s hard to imagine now, but Captain Kirk initially only got three years, and was almost cancelled after the first year.

Famously, Police Squad with Leslie Nielsen… Cancelled after 6 episodes due to being too funny. Then later the Naked Gun movies became very successful.

Fox in the 90s and 00s had a pattern of giving new and interesting shows a chance, and then fucking up the who thing with executive meddling. Everything from the broadcast schedule, the advertising, and then cancelling the show just as it was finding its audience. Firefly is the best example from that era, but there were dozens.

The original Utopia.

Not the amazon remake.

Possibly even flash forward?

I remember The Cape being a very early, probably too early, super hero TV show.

It came out right as Marvel was starting to ramp up into the cinematic universe. When superhero media existed and was occasionally successful, but was far from the juggernaut it later became with Endgame. So The Cape was released to audiences more familiar with Saturday morning cartoons, the early Spiderman films, the Dark Knight trilogy, and the flop that was the Fantastic 4. The Cape was a lighthearted and kind of satirical take on superhero tropes, helped by not being tied to an existing IP. It got cancelled after 1 season and had a pretty unsatisfying ending.

A few years later I watched it on Netflix and it taught me an important lesson about making sure a show had a decent conclusion before watching it.

The original Mobile Suit Gundam.

I get the impression that “Kings” (2009) would’ve been more successful on a streamer 5-10 years later.