We all know and love John Cho as a charismatic, engaging performer capable of both comedy and drama. He’s been making audiences laugh since Harold and Kumar and clocking in his sci-fi bona fides as the big screen Sulu in Star Trek. He has the range, he has the talent, and he’s been winning over audiences for decades.
Yet despite his long and varied career, he’s had an unusual number of canceled-too-soon TV shows. In fact, most of the series he’s starred in never even made it past season 1 (a very unfair statistic, we might add!) Below, we rank John Cho’s short-lived TV projects from the so-so to the ones that most deserved a shot.
9. The Single’s Table
Here’s a unique distinction on John Cho’s spotty TV resume: it’s one of the rare series canceled before an episode ever aired. It’s a shame, too, because the premise – and the cast – had real promise. Cho starred as Ivan, one of five strangers who bond after being stuck at (you guessed it) the "single’s table" at a wedding. With Clueless’s Alicia Silverstone also part of the cast, we could totally see this developing into a charming, New Girl-esque found family comedy. But since the series never even made it to the ’06-’07 schedule, we’ll sadly never know.
7. Off Centre
Also created by Danny Zucker alongside Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz (who respectively produced and directed American Pie, in which Cho also appeared), Off Centre is the rare entry on this list to nab a second-season order. The show followed a pair of friends and roommates, British Oxford grad Euan (Sean Maguire) and Mike (Eddie Kaye Thomas, another American Pie alum). Cho played their wacky friend Chau Presley, owner of a Vietnamese restaurant. Other Pie actors guest-starred along the way (including Eugene Levy and Jason Biggs), and as one might expect, the comedy shared a similar raunchy sense of humor. Sadly, the American Pie creds weren’t enough to keep the show on the air, and it was canceled seven episodes into season 2.
6. The Exorcist
Cho joined this horror series, which serves as a continuation of the 1973 film of the same name, in its second season. Each season followed Father Tomas (Alfonso Herrera) and Father Marcus (Ben Daniels) as they exorcized demons, like the ones found at Andy’s (Cho) foster home in season 2. The series was critically acclaimed but suffered from low ratings. In this case, it wasn’t too much of a blow for Cho fans, because (spoiler alert) his character died, so the actor wasn’t making it to season 3 anyway.
5. Kitchen Confidential
This pitch sounds like it would be a sure-fire hit today: Bradley Cooper stars as a fictionalized version of Anthony Bourdain in this sexy comedy about the fast-paced world of fine dining, executive produced by Sex and the City’s Darren Star with a supporting cast that included John Cho, John Francis Daley, and Jamie King, among others. Sadly, audiences didn’t see it that way in 2005, and the show was canceled after only six episodes had aired. Maybe it’s worth circling back to now!
4. Flashforward
Flashforward had all the makings of a cult classic sci-fi series, and we know how often those are cut short before unraveling their biggest mysteries. The drama centered around a bizarre event where nearly everyone on earth lost consciousness and saw visions of their lives six months in the future. FBI agent Mark Benford (Joseph Feinnes) uses his own flashforward to aid the investigation into the event with his partner Demetri Noh (Cho) who mysteriously saw nothing – leading him to worry that he wouldn’t survive to the date of the flashforward. With a stacked cast including Courtney B. Vance, Jack Davenport, Dominic Monaghan, Gabrielle Union, Michael Ealy and more, the low viewership in 2010 for the second half of season 1 is even more puzzling. We would still love to get to the bottom of that whole flashforward situation, especially after that finale cliffhanger.
3. Cowboy Bebop
Cho’s most recent one-season wonder is a real heartbreaker for fans of the actor and the original anime that the show was based on. Cho starred as Spike Spiegel, a bounty hunter chasing down criminals alongside his comrades Jet Black (Mustafa Shakir) and Faye Valentine (Daniella Pindea) across the galaxy in the year 2171. The adaptation of a beloved anime was hotly anticipated, but the live-action re-imagining failed to live up to expectations. Netflix can be pretty fickle with their cancellations on a good day, but after Cowboy Bebop was critically panned, the series was canceled three weeks after season 1 began streaming. Whether you were hoping this would finally be John Cho’s time to shine on TV or you were hoping a series to do justice by Cowboy Bebop, most of us wish this one turned out differently.
2. Go On
In a competitive field, Go On may be the most underrated show on John Cho’s resumé. The show followed Ryan King (Matthew Perry), a sports radio host who reluctantly joined a grief group after the death of his wife and bonded with the eclectic group of strangers he met there. Cho didn’t actually play one of the grieving oddballs, but rather Ryan’s boss and best friend who encouraged him to seek help in the first place. The show balanced a large cast of funny people and toggled between workplace comedy and a blooming found-family dynamic. Unfortunately, despite favorable reviews, it joined the graveyard of one-season series in 2013. Cho may have at this point eclipsed the sidekick role from this sitcom, but it’s still well worth a revisit.
1. Selfie
The pinnacle of Cho’s unfairly canceled series is Selfie, the charming, funny, romantic Pygmalion adaptation for the Internet age. Finally, we got John Cho as the leading man in a romantic comedy TV series (as the love interest for the endlessly watchable Karen Gillan, no less) and the show was cut short before it really found its footing. After airing seven episodes to poor ratings, the show was canceled by ABC. The remaining episodes were bumped to Hulu, a move that could have turned the ship around in the 2020s but was the final death knell in 2014. The sitcom is still held up as a classic example of the canceled-too-soon syndrome and is fondly remembered by legions of fans. So fondly remembered, in fact, that we think it’s high time to revisit Selfie. Give us the John Cho/Henry Higgins payoff we deserve!