Vindicated by History/Live-Action TV

The Honeymooners was a spinoff of The Jackie Gleason Show that didn't fare too well against competing shows. The 39 episodes it managed to air before cancellation are today regarded alongside I Love Lucy as quintessential 50s television.
The Addams Family: Not particularly successful in its original run, but a hit in syndication.
The original Star Trek series was canceled after three seasons due to poor Ratings. Then the studios started doing demographic studies, and it turned out the show they just cancelled was actually one of their top shows among the best demographics. The show was given loads of syndication reruns, which earned it loads of more fans over the years. Soon there were plans of reviving the series (which became the films), and the rest is history.
- On a smaller scale, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was initially mocked for "not going anywhere" and people tended to watch the more "exciting" spaceship set Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager instead... but it's since earned the best critical reviews of any Star Trek series and has become a kind of franchise Ensemble Darkhorse, with more people listing it as their favorite series now than when it aired. This is usually because of the fact that the setting was stationary, letting the creators add more depth and introduce serialized story arcs -- common now, but rare at the time.
- Also happened and lampshaded in-universe with Zefram Cochrane. He originally wanted to develop warp drive technology so he could sell it and retire immensely wealthy (something a bit questionable to people in later centuries), instead he ended up creating first contact with the Vulcans, who would completely transform human civilization for the better. Zefram Cochrane himself would later say, "don't try to be a great man, just a man. And let history decide for itself."
- The high-warp engine designed by Henry Archer with Cochrane was thought to be a crackpot dream by many. Expanded Universe books reveal that initially, Starfleet, was ready to go with the ion-warpdrive. In the Trekverse, the dilithium chamber warp drive has been the standard going into the 24th century.
Patrick Mc Goohan's sci-fi classic The Prisoner didn't last long on ITV, with a style so unconventional that the executives in charge were terrified of a second season being made.
- That's a disputed point. Some sources say that Mc Goohan only wanted the show to last 7 episodes, with the network wanting far more (somewhere between 26 or 37), and that they compromised on 17. The statement that it was canceled comes from a companion book.
Monty Python's Flying Circus was badly received at first; the studio audiences were largely old ladies (hence the use of the Women's Institute Applause Stock Footage) who expected an actual circus and the show was put out at odd hours of the night. It only gradually picked up its cult following.
Space: 1999, although enjoying some popularity at the time (1975-1977) has been a poster boy for poor writing, poor science, poor directing, poor acting. However, most of these criticisms are directed at the very different second season which was produced by Fred Frieberger, a figure noted for ruining good science fiction shows. Despite the Handwavium througout the entire series, the first season is now remembered as being deep, thoughful, and metaphysical. Despite a widespread perception of the show favoring special effects over story it can't be denied that the show had visual effects that still hold up even today. Many of it's effects crew went on to even bigger things such as Star Wars and Alien) further cementing Space 1999's place as the show that helped George Lucas and Ridley Scott discover good technical talent.
Fawlty Towers (the first season in particular) was lambasted by British TV critics who didn't find it inspired or funny at all. Gradually it became a cult series and eventually the most popular, critically acclaimed and often repeated British sitcom of all time.
During the era of the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy), Doctor Who received poor ratings and drew much criticism, resulting in it being put on hiatus for 15 years. The second and third seasons of that Doctor's tenure is now widely praised for its gritty realism, complex plotting, and return to a more mysterious portrayal of the Doctor.
Police Squad! challenged the attention spans of American viewers in the early 80s. Only 4 episodes initially aired, but a few years later it became a cult phenomenon and inspired its creators Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker to revive it in the feature film The Naked Gun.
The first season of Cheers was the lowest-rated sitcom in 1982. Critical acclaim allowed the show to survive into a second season, which became a smash hit and effectively vindicated season 1.
Anne Beatts —who in the 70s had teamed with boyfriend/writing-colleague Michael O Donoghue to bring sadistic edge to the early seasons of SNL— created in 1982 a teen sitcom called Square Pegs. The material presented in Pegs (more adult in nature than the average 12-to-19-demographic offering at the time) resulted in public alienation and ratings disaster. A fandom grew around the show over the course of the decade — enough to propel lead actress Sarah Jessica Parker to stardom.
FOX's Space: Above and Beyond debuted to middling ratings and mixed reaction from critics and viewers when it premiered in 1995. The show, which centered around a group of outer-space Marine pilots fighting to stop an invasion by an otherworldly alien force, was roundly criticized at the time for being "Full Metal Jacket in space". It was cancelled at the end of its first season (due to peer pressure from parents' groups over the violence in the show), and appeared to disappear from the ether... that is, until stations like the Sci-Fi Channel and the Space Channel (in Canada) started airing marathons of the show, and audiences began to watch it in droves. It then picked up a cult following for blazing trails no other sci-fi series had done up to that point: highly serialized plots that relied on minor stories and comments from previous episodes, a realistic treatment of military politics, CGI used as a narrative tool, gender and ethnic diversity, and permanent cast and story changes. It was even ranked in IGN's list of Top 50 Sci-Fi TV Shows. Today, the show is considered to be one of the defining sci-fi series of the 90's, and helped shape the current wave of serialized sci-fi shows (like Battlestar Galactica).
Freaks and Geeks lasted one season and was seemingly forgotten once it was over. The show has since skyrocketed in popularity.
Malcolm in the Middle was initially building up momentum as a must-see sitcom, but because of FOX's constant switching of timeslots and the resulting nuisance in trying to find Malcolm, the series suffered ratings failure. Eventually general disinterest (though there was a small cult fandom) forced the writers to wrap up the show's loose ends and call it quits. In reruns the series is very popular.
Firefly underwent some serious Executive Meddling during its original run that it was cancelled after only 11 episodes managed to air. Today, Firefly as a whole is now hailed as a sci-fi classic.
Arrested Development aired for only three seasons before being cancelled. The show was well received and won six Emmys and a Golden Globe, but it got low ratings which were mostly due to its time slot constantly being switched and its lack of advertising. A year after it was cancelled, Time Magazine listed it as one of the best 100 TV shows of all time, and it has since achieved a cult following. There has been talk of an Arrested Development movie ever since the show was cancelled, and most of the cast has expressed a desire to be in said movie, but so far it has been stuck in Development Hell.
- 10 new episodes and a movie have now officially been announced for a 2013 release.
The CW ratings dud Veronica Mars has proven a tremendous hit on DVD and cable reruns.
- Possibly an example of perception not matching the reality - producer Joel Silver has said that part of the reason a movie hasn't happened is that the DVD sets "didn't do that well", indicating that there wasn't much of an audience for a potential feature. Then again, he IS a Hollywood producer. They lie a lot.

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