Sadly, for fans of the handful of hours every week during which TNT does not air basketball or Law & Order, another beloved original series has just been cut short. A few days ago, Franklin & Bash was cancelled—but in a cool way, befitting its cool lawyer bro heroes—and now Perception has met the same fate. Well, minus the cool lawyer bros.
Perception starred Eric McCormack as Dr. Daniel Pierce, a paranoid schizophrenic neuropsychiatrist who prided himself on the fact that each word of his character description would be worth a million points in Scrabble. Perception was a procedural crime drama, but what separated it from the countless other procedural crime dramas on TV was that the thing that made Pierce different was actually his greatest strength. In a move that’s absolutely unheard of on TV, Pierce would use his genius intellect and schizophrenia to help him solve mysteries. This made Pierce a deeper, more well-rounded character than some of his contemporaries like Adrian Monk, Carrie Wells, Will Graham, Shawn Spencer, Dr. Temperance Brennan, or even Dr. House—none of whom were able to use their unique character traits to solve mysteries.
Well, alright, they did that all the time, but none of their shows had LeVar Burton. Perception had LeVar Burton. Bet you wish you had watched it now, huh? Still no? Well, it’s canceled, and now nobody will be able to watch it once it finishes up its third season early next year.