We all have our favorite TV shows which we love, the shows we grew up with, the shows we quote endlessly and the shows we collect on DVD. But there are the other shows, promising Science Fiction television series that might have been but were rapidly cut short just as they were getting started. This is dedicated to them.

1. Earth 2

Long before there was Lost, there was Earth 2, a series that shared much in common with Lost, a journey that ended in a crash landing in a mysterious place, individualistic survivors struggling to get along and a hidden agenda among their ranks and a conspiracy that is behind their presence here and is tied to the secret of the mysterious planet. Unlike Lost however, Earth 2's explicitly Science Fiction elements never resonated with audiences and its pairing with SeaQuest did not bring it the viewers that Earth 2 needed to survive. Despite the vigorous fan campaign which TV Guide noted at the time, Earth 2 was cancelled.

But before Earth 2 was cancelled by NBC the series unveiled a promising landscape and a backstory as well as characters with their own agendas, one of whom included Terry O'Quinn, who would later go on to play Locke on Lost. The mysteries of Earth 2 would remain mostly unsolved but Earth 2 itself would remain as a lamentable example of a series cancelled before it properly had the chance to fly.

2. Firefly

Few mentions of cancelled TV series' these days would be sufficient without mentioning Firefly. When Buffy creator Joss Whedon made the transition from fantasy to Science Fiction, the result was a TV series that fused the Western with the space series to make something that was entertaining and unique especially when fused with Joss Whedon's unique style, dialogue and sensibility.

Firefly however was a troubled series from the start. Like the original Star Trek its pilot was dropped and a new more audience friendly pilot was shot with the original pilot reborn as a two part episode. Firefly's ratings suffered from the beginning and it was rather clear that FOX was uncomfortable with the adventurous series. Before its full run was even complete Firefly was cancelled and the remaining episodes appeared on the DVD. While those episodes themselves like Heart of Gold were arguably quite mediocre, Firefly's cancellation attracted a deeply vocal fanbase that helped drive the demand for a Firefly film. Universal did indeed wind up making a Firefly movie, titled Serenity and written and directed by Joss Whedon, but the movie unfortunately bombed, thus entombing Firefly forever.

But nevertheless in its brief run, though it had lasted barely half a season, Firefly had created an intriguing universe, a mix of Western planets overshadowed by Chinese culture, an ominous central government with operatives reminiscent of the X-Files. The results were quite different than most Science Fiction series and produced a show well worth remembering.

3. Odyssey 5

Odyssey 5 is not a Science Fiction series most are familiar with but before Manny Cotto went on to run Enterprise's fourth season and produced some of its most brilliant episodes, including Azati Prime and Similitude, he created a Science Fiction series for Showtime known as Odyssey 5. Despite receiving high ratings, Odyssey 5 was killed without most viewers ever getting a chance to learn about it. Yet while it aired, Odyssey 5 showcased an intriguing mix of high and low Science Fiction, going from the destruction of the earth to Groundhog Day style implications of attempting to alter future events.

It is unknown where Odyssey 5 would have gone had it been allowed to continue running but there is little doubt that the resulting series had many possibilities best compared to Michael Piller's Dead Zone series. But Odyssey 5 did not get the chances that The Dead Zone got. It was an idiosyncratic Science Fiction TV series and those are always vulnerable even with a comfortable ratings margin. Executives rarely like Science Fiction and Odyssey 5 was beaten to death by Showtime with little to no effort made to save it. Manny Coto went on to Enterprise which too was cancelled. And from there he moved on to 24. Odyssey 5 is dead but the spirit, the potential of an original and different kind of Science Fiction TV series hopefully lives in.

4. Nowhere Man

Perhaps not a Science Fiction series in the true sense of the word, Nowhere Man embraced that form of paranoid surrealism which is often found in dystopian Science Fiction of a world gone awry and the natural course of things turned on its head. Airing in the early days of UPN, a now perished network, Nowhere Man was an intriguing experiment in storytelling with a good cast and a dark story.

At the center of Nowhere Man was the story of Thomas Veil, a photojournalist who took a photo of four men being hanged by soldiers in South America. That photo comes to haunt his life as in a matter of minutes, Thomas Veil finds his identity erased, his wife refuses to recognize him, his credit cards no longer work and he has no choice but to go on the run.

A TV series that foresaw many of the paranoid preoccupations of the X-Files and the War on Terror, danced regularly between the possible and the impossible as Thomas Veil, played by Bruce Greenwood, found himself in an impossible world and fighting a vast conspiracy that seemed to control everything. While the overall series seemed to be inspired by The Prisoner, the "island" was the world and the bright tones and wacky pop art overtones of that series were gone, replaced by an image of a grim world and a man who has lost his life and has no choice but to flee the hunters while scrambling for a way to strike a blow back at an enemy whose nature he does not quite understand and whose every revelation hides a deeper level of manipulation.

As the series progressed, Nowhere Man encapsulated the questions of free will and predestination and the need to see beneath the illusion embodied in The Matrix movies and as the series approached the edge, the revelations only became ever more disturbing. Nowhere Man was cancelled in its first year but its haunting legacy lives on.

5. Space Above and Beyond

Space Above and Beyond or SAAB was what Battlestar Galactica only attempted to be, a genuine TV series about a war in space against a mysterious alien enemy stripped of Battlestar Galactica's pretentious posturing, wailing music or attempt to comment on the great cosmic truths of the universe. Right down to its devastating first season finale, Space Above and Beyond nailed down what TV series like the latter seasons of Star Trek Deep Space Nine or Battlestar Galactica only attempted.

For its time Space Above and Beyond was a very expensive series to do and FOX had a notorious lack of patience with its Science Fiction series. Space Above and Beyond was cancelled with one season under its belt. The series was gone but aspects of it were incorporated in later shows such as Battlestar Galactica. Still Space Above and Beyond remained the demonstration of how a space war TV series should be done.

While these television shows are long gone, Science Fiction after all is a medium in which death is rarely final and there is always hope of a return to life from lifelessness.