• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 8 hours ago

It is rarer than it used to be, but some network TV shows still get canceled after one or two seasons.

Two cases in point: “DMV” and the crime-procedural series “Watson” -- both canceled by CBS.

“DMV” lasted just one season. It was a one-camera comedy series about the denizens of a fictional California Department of Motor Vehicles outpost in East Hollywood (above photo). The show’s final episode is scheduled for Monday, May 11. 

Apparently, viewers found this workplace comedy to be as monotonous as a visit to a real DMV office. The TV Blog felt the same way in a review from last October when the show premiered.

“As the facility fills up with an overflow of frustrated, impatient vehicle owners and license applicants, these staffers stand around or sit around complaining to each other about their lives and their jobs, which none of them are doing anyway,” said the TV Blog.

The title of “Watson” referred to Dr. John Watson, a character from the Sherlock Holmes universe. 

All through the long history of Holmes movies and TV shows, Dr. Watson was the great detective’s awestruck sidekick.

But in “Watson,” the sidekick (played by Morris Chestnut) was elevated to star status. He was a modern-day super-sleuth and renowned geneticist with a team of young science nerds who got involved in crime investigations in -- of all places -- Pittsburgh. 

Comparing him for some unknown reason to Batman in a review in January 2025, the TV Blog declared of Dr. Watson that “the Steel City is his Gotham, and Moriarty is his penguin.” The show lasted two seasons. The series finale is scheduled for Sunday, May 3.

Also saying good-bye on CBS next month is “The Neighborhood,” the Monday night comedy starring Cedric the Entertainer that had a long run of eight season. The show’s finale is Monday, May 11.

Once upon a time, a certain percentage of new fall shows on the old broadcast networks would eventually bite the dust in their first seasons -- many within a few short weeks of their premieres. 

This particular phenomenon is much less common today as the networks have found ways to make shows that are more likely to succeed than to fail. 

Over at NBC, the trade press is characterizing the neurosurgeon drama “Brilliant Minds” as canceled, although there has been no official word on either a cancellation or a series finale date.

But reporters have concluded that the show is a goner because it did not return to the NBC lineup after it was preempted for the winter Olympics on Monday nights. 

The trade sites are reporting that the show’s final episodes will be burned off this summer.

Other than these three shows, almost all of the other dramas and comedies on the four broadcast networks are reported as renewed, or certain to be renewed, for next season.

Exceptions include a handful of shows whose futures are still uncertain, according to trade-press consensus -- the Denis Leary service comedy “Going Dutch” on Fox, the new detective drama “R.J. Decker” on ABC, the Tracy Morgan comedy “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins” and the cheerleading comedy “Stumble,” both on NBC.  

The highest-profile series finale in May is “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on CBS. The last show is Thursday, May 21.