There's no shortage of shows that have been canceled before their time. In some cases, the writers no longer could work together, such as the case with John Cleese and Connie Booth's iconic sitcom Fawlty Towers. In other cases, famed directors found ways of taking town success series like Buffy The Vampire Slayer. More often than not, it was our favorite childhood shows that were canceled, for better or for worse. For many, Disney's Gargoyles was the most beloved show from their youths. Much like Batman: The Animated Series before it, Gargoyles didn't pander to its audience. It was smart, dark, and dealt with honest and adult themes... despite it being about a bunch of thousand-year-old gargoyles who come to life at night in 1990s Manhattan.
Given that the series was so successful for its first two seasons, it was surprising when Disney gave it the ax by the end of their third. Since then, Gargoyles has become a cult-hit with a dedicated fanbase waiting for a revival or a movie. While they may never get either, at least they now know why the show ended in the first place...
The Second Season's First Snag
Gargoyles was special. Unlike the vast majority of Disney's property in the 1990s (and today), the show was entirely original. And because of this, it took a long time before Disney was ready to release the show on air. In fact, it started out as an entirely different show before it was eventually greenlit, according to creator and producer Greg Weisman in an interview with SYFY Wire.
"Season 1, we were a huge hit," Greg Weisman said of the series he was trying to get made for years prior. "Season 2, we were a solid hit – like a single. We weren't doing badly, but we premiered opposite the first season in America of Power Rangers. And Power Rangers was a blockbuster. That was a grand slam. And if that wasn't bad enough, this was also the year of the O.J. Simpson trial, and we were constantly getting pre-empted by trial coverage. That was true for Power Rangers, too, but for that show, you could tune in to any episode at any time. We had a sequential arc."
Part of this creative choice was what led to the end of Gargoyles, although fans seem to hold these arcs close to their hearts in recent years.
"In Season 2, we had these World Tour arcs that were supposed to go about four weeks. But because of pre-emption delays, it wound up lasting six months or something like that. So the audience felt like this World Tour we sent our characters on was never going to end. And it was not designed to feel like that. If they had aired how they were originally meant to air, it wouldn't have been a problem."
Greg's "Huge" Creative Mistake
While the sequential arcs Greg wrote for his characters made it harder for a young audience to catch up with the delays the show experience, it was another creative decision that really put a nail in Gargoyles' coffin.
"I also made another decision on Season 2 that we would do 30-second 'previously on Gargoyles' lead-in segments at the beginning of every episode, " Greg explained.
This made sense to Greg at the time. Although Greg made this decision, for the obvious reason of wanting his audience to be aware of what happened in the previous episode, especially while exploring a sequential story arc. Instead, he directed that his crew make the 'previously on' segment to cover up sloppy work.
"We were getting animation back from Japan and Korea, and it wasn't always great. So the ability to cut 30 seconds of bad footage out of the show was a huge editing help to us."
This creative choice, albeit born out of a certain necessity, ended up biting Greg in the butt.
"In hindsight, it was a huge mistake. People would see those 'previously' segments and think, 'Wow, I missed a lot. I'm too late to come on board for this show.' And that wasn't true."
Every show Greg has done since has avoided the use of these segments.
Disney's Greed And Fear Ultimately Destroyed The Show
While some of the creative decisions ended up hurting Gargoyles, it was Disney's purchase of ABC that really ended up dooming the show. After the purchase, many of Disney's network team had moved on to DreamWorks animation while ABC folk were brought on to take over Gargoyles.
"[The new team] offered the show to me for that third ABC season, but it was clear to me they didn't want me to say yes. I think the perception was that I was biding my time until the end of post-production, and then I would go to DreamWorks. So they stopped inviting me to meetings because they viewed me as a spy in their ranks. But that wasn't true. I really wanted to stay at Disney. But when they offered me the third season of Gargoyles, they offered me a demotion from producer to story editor. They weren't going to let me produce the third season."
Because of Greg's demotion, the third season of Gargoyles looked and felt drastically different. It was even called, Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles.
While Greg told SYFYWire that the third season had some good people on it, he said that they were under a terrible time constraint and therefore rushed. Additionally, any advice he gave them about the show he created was scrapped.
"If you watch that season, it feels a lot more like X-Men than Gargoyles. A lot of characters are behaving out of character, the animation is mixed quality, and the stories aren't great."
And because of this, viewership fell and Disney/ABC ultimately decided to pull the plug.