10 TV Shows About Mysteries That Were Never Solved
A good overarching mystery is one of the most consistent ways to keep an audience tuning into a TV show week after week, but not every series that does so manages to present satisfying answers before ending. After the success of series like Lost, network TV quickly became flooded with copycats hoping to replicate the popularity of the long-running shows with similar mysteries baked into their loglines. While the ending of Lost might not have been the most satisfying conclusion in the world, it at least had the chance to provide some answers.
- Not every mystery series gets a satisfying ending, like Persons Unknown, leaving viewers hanging on unresolved plotlines.
- Santa Clarita Diet and The Society both fell victim to abrupt cancellations, leaving key mysteries unanswered to the disappointment of fans.
- Shows like FlashForward and Kyle XY were cut short just as they were starting to reveal intriguing mysteries, leaving audiences craving more answers.
The same can't be said for many unfortunate shows based around a mystery premise which were cruelly canceled or haphazardly wrapped up before they had a chance to reveal their intentions. Granted, not every show to have this fate befall them was a Lost copycat, with plenty of more comedic or character-driven series falling into the same trap of over-promising and under-delivering. These shows joined the graveyard of the most painful TV cancelations, ending on cliffhangers that were never given resolution.
10 PHOTOS
10. Persons Unknown
1 Season
Seven strangers are taken to a desert town and can't remember how they got there. The group is held hostage and monitored by cameras. To survive, they must trust each other and form alliances with the strangers around them.
Bizarrely, unlike most mystery series that fail to deliver on their premises, Persons Unknown wasn't canceled, though a planned second season did fail to materialize. The show follows a group of seven strangers who wake up in an eerie abandoned town with no memories as to how they arrived there.
Despite grandiose promises, Persons Unknown fundamentally failed to deliver on its biggest mysteries.
To further complicate matters, the city seems to put them through a series of mentally tortuous ordeals as the outside world attempts to find the suddenly disappeared septet. Despite grandiose promises, Persons Unknown fundamentally failed to deliver on its biggest mysteries.
In the end, the only scant details regarding the strangers' predicament that are revealed are that their circumstances were orchestrated by the mysterious group known as "The Program", of which one of the abductees was secretly a turncoat member. The short-lived series ends with a cliffhanger, resetting its status quo in a new town built into the hull of a massive container ship.
9. Santa Clarita Diet
3 Seasons
Joel and Sheila Hammond live a typical life as real estate agents in Santa Clarita, California, but all that changes when Sheila becomes a zombie and starts craving human flesh. This horror comedy stars Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant and lasted for a total of three seasons before being canceled in April 2019.
Netflix has become infamous for canceling even its more well-received shows, citing invisible unreleased metrics despite apparent popularity. To date, Santa Clarita Diet has been one of the biggest victims of this phenomenon, being a popular comedy that starred Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant.
The streaming series follows the two stars as a real-estate power couple whose lives are forever changed when one of them becomes an undead ghoul with intense cravings for human flesh. Admittedly, the comedy was always the bigger draw to Santa Clarita Diet, but the mystery of Sheila's condition was still a powerful overarching draw.
NOTE:
In addition to being the main actress, Drew Barrymore was also the executive producer of Santa Clarita Diet (2017-2019).
The series sadly ends on a cliffhanger featuring the mysterious lifeform coughed up by Sheila during her transformation, possibly infecting her husband Joel next. While Santa Clarita's creator still wants a season 4, the series seems to have ended without ever explaining the fundamental cause of Sheila's affliction.
8. The Event
1 Season
The Event is a crime drama about Sean Walker, who goes on a mission to find his missing girlfriend. But along the way, he uncovers a conspiracy that is even above the President of the United States. The series starred Jason Ritter and Sarah Roemer and premiered in 2010 for a single season.
The Event is a crime drama about Sean Walker, who goes on a mission to find his missing girlfriend. But along the way, he uncovers a conspiracy that is even above the President of the United States. The series starred Jason Ritter and Sarah Roemer and premiered in 2010 for a single season.
Of all the shows that attempted to cash in on the popularity of Lost, The Event may have been one of the most egregious. The series revolved around a plane crash full of survivors who, though appearing to be human on the outside, were actually extraterrestrial in origin, with a handful of the group managing to escape internment by the U.S. government.
In the wake of an assassination attempt on the president just before he decides to release the captured aliens, the escapees struggle to mount a response. The Event had plenty of intrigue, from the origins of the extraterrestrial (though human-looking) beings to the goals of a seemingly rogue faction of them living on Earth that seemed to want the president dead.
Unfortunately, none of these ideas were able to manifest into a satisfying story arc thanks to the series' early cancelation from NBC. The Event came and went without ever disclosing more than the most subtle of hints to its biggest lingering questions.
7. V
2 Seasons
In the sci-fi series V, Earth encounters an extraterrestrial race that calls themselves the Visitors, who promote peace. But, despite their peaceful demeanor and offering aid to humanity, something sinister lies beneath the surface. FBI agent Erica discovers a secret about the aliens that threaten humanity's very existence. V is a reimagining of the original 1980s mini-series.
Oddly enough, The Event wasn't the only late 2000s mystery show to center around human-looking aliens. Enter 2009's V, a remake of the 1983 miniseries of the same name. V introduces Earth to "The Visitors", a group of aliens who appear dramatically in 29 massive ships above the Earth's major cities.
Their human-looking representative, Anna, promises fantastic technology to the human race in exchange for a small amount of resources, but the people of Earth aren't so quick to trust the mysterious saviors. The question of whether The Visitors have good intentions is not the overarching mystery, as it's quickly revealed that not only are the aliens a shapeshifting race of lizard people, but they've been secretly infiltrating the Earth's government for years before their public appearance.
Instead, the exact nature of Anna and The Visitor's plans for Earth is the true mystery that V holds above its audience's heads like one of the aliens' ominous hovering spaceships. Sadly, V was canned before it could properly elaborate on The Visitor's true motives.
6. The Society
1 Season
One day in West Ham, Connecticut, the students of the local high school return from a field trip to find the rest of the town's population gone. With a dense forest surrounding the town and no way to contact the outside world via phone or internet, the teenagers must formulate their own rules to maintain their society and survive.
Mystery dramas and teen casts seem to go together nicely, and this was a winning formula that The Society sought to get in one. Premiering on Netflix in 2019, the series focused on a group of teenagers who are forced to rebuild society when everyone on the planet mysteriously vanishes, leaving only their abandoned hometown in an infinite sea of woodland.
What follows is an intense Lord of the Flies-style drama that doled out answers to its many mysteries sparingly. Unfortunately, The Society perhaps leaned too far on the latter technique, ending before it could reveal any satisfying conclusions about the state of its world.
The show was sadly hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, and despite being initially approved for a second season, production simply fell through, never to be picked up again. It's a shame that the modestly well-received show didn't have the time it deserved to enact its narrative.
5. No Tomorrow
1 Season
No Tomorrow is a TV drama series that follows the story of Evie, a risk-averse quality-control assessor, who meets free-spirited thrill-seeker Xavier. Believing the apocalypse is imminent, Xavier convinces Evie to follow a lifestyle based on his "Apocalypse," a list of things to do before the world ends. The series explores themes of self-discovery and living life to the fullest.
No Tomorrow is a TV drama series that follows the story of Evie, a risk-averse quality-control assessor, who meets free-spirited thrill-seeker Xavier. Believing the apocalypse is imminent, Xavier convinces Evie to follow a lifestyle based on his "Apocalypse," a list of things to do before the world ends. The series explores themes of self-discovery and living life to the fullest.
No Tomorrow is a romantic comedy with light mystery elements, following the adventures of a woman who meets an apocalypse truther who convinces her to take on a bucket list of outrageous activities before the supposed end of the world. The entire premise relies on the eccentric Xavier's supposition that the world will be hit by a massive asteroid, wiping out life on the planet.
While the series unceremoniously ended before this mystery could be definitively solved, the CW was kind enough to reveal a small epilogue for No Tomorrow that did provide some answers. It turns out that while Xavier is right about the meteor, it only does a small amount of damage to a farm in Kansas, leaving him and Evie free to pursue a relationship.
4. You, Me, And The Apocalypse
1 Season
It turns out that apocalyptic scenarios involving giant meteors are popular enough as the premise of a comedic mystery show. Unlike No Tomorrow, You, Me, and the Apocalypse make no mistake about its impending doom, making it clear that the end is coming whether humanity wants to admit it or not.
Instead, the primary mystery element of the series revolves around the parentage of Jamie Winton and Ariel Conroy, a pair of estranged twins with mysterious circumstances surrounding their birth. In several instances throughout the show, it's heavily implied that Jamie, in particular, will be something of a Christ-like figure in the coming apocalypse, implying strange things about his birth parents.
He even manages to part a river like Moses in the series finale, aghast by his sudden supernatural strength just minutes before the apocalypse arrives. Unfortunately, You, Me, and the Apocalypse remains an open-ended question in the TV landscape.
3. How I Met Your Father
2 Seasons
Unrelated to but set in the same universe as How I Met Your Mother, How I Met Your Father gives the audience a chance to see the original premise playing out with a new cast. In 2055, Sophie (Hilary Duff) is telling her son the story of how she met his father: a story that catapults us back to the year 2021, where Sophie and her close-knit group of friends are figuring out who they are, what they want out of life, and how to fall in love in the age of dating apps and limitless options. The show follows the exact framing device as How I Met Your Mother, with future Sophie speaking to her son, whom the audience has yet to see.
Not every comedy series centered around a mystery has to be quite as high-stakes as the end of the world, as proven by all 9 seasons of How I Met Your Mother. Hoping to coast off the series' success, a spin-off show, How I Met Your Father, aimed to recapture the same comedy highs.
Sadly, How I Met Your Father was canceled before it could adequately be explained how Hilary Duff's Sophie actually did meet the father of her children.
Just like its predecessor, the series used a mother telling the story of how she met her children's father as a framing device, narrating the past before eventually answering the titular question. Sadly, How I Met Your Father was canceled before it could adequately explain how Hilary Duff's Sophie did meet the father of her children.
While it's revealed that Sophie's best friend Valentina had a child with her love interest, the aristocratic Brit Charlie, the parentage of her children remains a mystery. By the time the series was abruptly cut off, Jesse was the closest thing Sophie's kids had to an answer.
2. FlashForward
1 Season
FlashForward is a Primetime Emmy award-winning show that aired on ABC for a single season. The series centers on a special FBI unit that struggles to understand what happens when the entire world blacks out and has a vision of their futures. FlashForward starred Courtney B. Vance, Joseph Fiennes, and Jack Davenport.
Another of the more egregious Lost clones in the wake of ABC's late 2000s run, FlashForward was a fascinating science fiction series that wasn't able to plan for the end. Based on a novel of the same name, the series chronicled the aftermath of an event in which the entire population of the Earth mysteriously blacked out for roughly two minutes, causing worldwide panic and chaos.
Even more disturbing, many people experienced "flash-forwards" during the missing period, giving them cryptic visions of the future. FlashForward flirted with solving most of its mysteries, linking its inciting event to both a smaller-scale occurrence in Somalia and a well-timed scientific experiment.
It seemed to be becoming clear that a shadowy organization was behind the event, but exactly how and to what end they managed to pull the blackout off remains a mystery. Canceled with little warning, FlashForward's season 1 finale ended with a time skip that showed a second blackout event happening, casting its characters' visions even further into the future with no solid explanations.
1. Kyle XY
3 Seasons
A family takes in a previously institutionalized teenager who lacks common human behaviors, such as anger, joy, and love, and is a great mystery.
Compared to the long-winded yarns of other mystery series, the lingering questions of Kyle XY were refreshingly simple. The seldom-remembered early 2000s series followed the adventures of a young man who wakes up with no memories of his past, discovering that he also doesn't have a belly button.
Taken in by a friendly family named Kyle, the boy soon learns that he has mysterious psychic powers, casting further questions as to his origin. Again, Kyle XY is an example of a series that only just begun painting a picture of the answers to its major mysteries before being canceled due to low ratings.
Kyle learns that he was created by scientists, and even seems to be recognized by secret communities of them, but the purpose and exact methods of his creation remain unknown. The cliffhanger that Kyle XY's second season finale ended on is among one of the most tragic unfulfilled set-ups in modern TV.
Keywords: TV Shows | Cinema | Movies | Films | Mysteries movies | Entertainment