Why The Stephen King Series The Dead Zone Was Canceled

Stephen King is arguably the most celebrated horror writer of all time. He's also an extremely prolific author whose work has been turned into countless movies and TV shows — many of which fail, but some of which are stunningly great. When you think of Stephen King, there are works that immediately jump to mind, like "The Shining," "Carrie," or maybe even "The Shawshank Redemption." Something like "The Dead Zone," on the other hand, tends to be overlooked, which is too bad. King's story centers on Johnny Smith, a man who gets into a car accident and wakes up from a coma five years later, now armed with the power to see into the future and past by touching people or items. Beyond that, though, the man's life is a mess; his one true love has moved on and started a family with someone else, and he keeps having visions of a politician who will eventually become president and start a nuclear war.

"The Dead Zone" received a masterpiece of a film adaptation in 1983, with David Cronenberg directing a cast that includes Martin Sheen and a fantastic Christopher Walken. Then, in 2002, the story was re-adapted as a USA Network TV series starring Anthony Michael Hall and created by former "Star Trek" writers Michael and Shawn Piller. This version of "The Dead Zone" was primarily a police procedural, with Johnny (Hall) helping a local sheriff (and his former fiancée's husband) solve crimes using his abilities, all while having visions of a future apocalyptic event involving a congressional candidate. The biggest difference between King's novel and the series took the form of a fundamental shift in Johnny's character, as he went from a tragic hero doomed to sacrifice himself to prevent his vision from happening to, basically, a cop with a sidekick.

While it was far from short-lived, "The Dead Zone" nevertheless came to an unexpected end after six seasons. What happened?

After 80 episodes spread across six seasons, "The Dead Zone" concluded with a big cliffhanger in 2007. First, there was the revelation that Johnny's father was still alive and being used as an underground psychic. On top of that, Johnny's son J.J. (Connor Price) also had a vision of the nuclear armageddon, only this time it wasn't the aforementioned congressman who caused the end of the world, but Johnny himself. This would have been a fascinating twist for a seventh season to follow up on, but ultimately, USA elected to pull the plug on both "The Dead Zone" and "The 4400," another popular show airing on USA Network at the time (one that ultimately got a reboot). This is unfortunate because "The Dead Zone" was, along with "Monk," the show that put the network on the map when it launched in 2002.

Reportedly, USA canceled these shows because they were older and more expensive to make. On top of that, the network believed that axing them would give its new series at the time a better opportunity to build their audiences (which sounds all the sillier when you realize it could have instead "The Dead Zone" and "The 4400" as the lead-ins and, as such, a way to drive viewers to its newest shows).

"We wish we could keep all our great shows alive forever," said Jeff Wachtel, then the Executive VP or Original Programming at US, in a statement issued at the time (via Reuters). "But we feel we need to give some of our new shows a platform to grow, and it's with great sadness that we say goodbye to two shows that had a great run and helped create the resurgence of original programming on our network and on all of cable."