The Dresden Files: Sci Fi Series Cancelled After One Season
After months of uncertainty, the fantasy/mystery series has been cancelled and won’t be returning for a second season.
The Dresden Files was based on a series of novels by Jim Butcher and followed the adventures of Harry Dresden, a wizard who helped the police solve cases. The show debuted on the Sci Fi Channel on January 21, 2007 and ran for 12 episodes. Though the series’ ratings weren’t very strong, a loyal fanbase had hoped that Dresden Files would be renewed for a sophomore year. That didn’t happen and Sci Fi has now confirmed that the series is done.
Perhaps not coincidentally, this news comes on the same day that its been announced that Dresden Files star Paul Blackthorne has joined the cast of new ABC drama Big Shots. Blackthorne will play a high-powered CEO that draws the envy of characters played by Joshua Malina, Dylan McDermott, Christopher Titus, and Michael Vartan. Big Shots will begin airing this Fall on Thursday nights, following Grey’s Anatomy on ABC. Stay tuned! 
90. Johnny Cash said,
You’re right Scifi you had to cancel Dresden to make room for more Ghost Hunters. The books are better anyway.
89. Amanda Pike said,
The Dresden Files was a fantastic show with a brilliant cast. I simply adored Terrence Mann’s portrayal of the snarky yet tragic ghost, Bob AKA Hrothbert of Bainbridge. This was an incredible show. Why were there only twelve episodes? It had so much potential. Canceling this after only twelve episodes is as much a sin as it would have been if WB (now CW) had canceled Buffy The Vampire Slayer after it’s first season. The show and it’s story lines were only just beginning to unfold. Sure this was a different universe from the original novels that it was based on but that is what made it exciting and enticing. The stories were fresh and new and you did not know what was going to happen next. And many of us fans of the original novels were actually pleased about Bob’s transformation from the two dimensional talking skull comic relief of the books to the intelligent and cleverly crafted ghost character portrayed by a great Broadway icon for the show.
Instead of telling the truth the Scifi Channel allowed people to believe that Paul Blackthorne (Harry Dresden) had left the show and that’s why it was canceled even though Paul Blackthorne only found new work when the announcement of if the Dresden Files would continue or not was delayed by three months. They never corrected rumors of low ratings even though The Dresden Files ratings were really very close to those of the flagship show, Battlestar Galactica. Right now on an amazon poll for the Scifi channel store has a poll in which The Dresden files is in the far lead as the number 1 spot for best show on the Scifi Channel. Someone even “misinformed” Variety magazine that The Dresden Files was the Scifi Channel’s biggest commercial failure. They seemed to conveniently forget about Pain Killer Jane and Trash… I mean Flash Gordan. That statement in Variety magazine earned that particular article more negative online comments than any other article published by Variety that year. The DVD sales for The Dresden Files are still going great. Robert Wolfe (one of the main forces behind the show) had great plans to develope the Hrothbert of Bainbridge / Winifred story line in season 2 and many fans were very eager to see this unfold. The Dresden Files message board on the Scifi Channel official website is STILL more active than many other discussion forum on that site.
Right now there’s a huge trend of wizard based TV shows such as Wizard’s of Waverly Place on The Disney Channel, the new show, Wizard’s first rule, and on BBC (soon NBC) Merlin.
So why is there no season two of The Dresden Files? Who was foolish enough to discontinue this show just as the seventh Harry Potter book was hitting store shelves and wizard fever was at it’s zenith? There were so many mysteries of unfolding plots not yet resolved. How did ending this show make sense at all? Why do they bring back the likes of Scare Tactics but not The Dresden Files?
The Dresden Files was the first truly great fantasy creation of The Scifi Channel. Thanks to the appearance of Doctor Who (thought somewhat cut down for commercials) and The Dresden Files I had thought The SciFi Channel was improving but with the loss of The Dresden Files I have again lost faith…
We want The Dresden Files!
88. Dark said,
Dear Sci,
why you guys haded to cancelled the best show ever? this was a terrific show i seen, in other comments other people like this show, not like this show but love this show, but you guys haded to shut it down. the series was just getting started and interesting as well.you guys might not have very good ratings because not people have cable or sattelit dish for seeing this show. why not show it on air just like the CW does….etc… i REALLY love this show………….
87. slevin said,
this was the best show sci fi had ever ha. why did u guys have to end it. Me and my entire family loved this show and now it is cancelled and that ticks me off. I think sci fi is really stupid for doing this and its not like they had alot better shows on even their movies are horrible, just with the graphics.
You guys have to bring this show back just to finish it and i thought it was a great show.
86. Lars said,
Fatbrad - you are an idiot - Firefly was on USA for a short period 4 years before it hit SciFi, just like Enterprise. Firefly was rerun to boost the movie
85. sydney girl said,
I loved Dresdan FIles, sci-fi shows just never get a chance!!!!!
84. thebeholder said,
Good riddance , This should was a dull and poorly written waste of your lives 1 hour at a time. The characters where shallow and contrived at the very best and the plot being not 100% like everything else on tv still seemed stale and recycled, the whole super natural cop show became a tired theme after the first show to use that idea was canceled many many years ago .
83. Fatbrad said,
SciFi sucks. They did the same thing to Firefly and they’ve gone and royally messed this up too. I don’t know how many viewers watch those awful recycled movies with their recycled monsters and recycled story lines and recycled lines, but I’ll guarantee that reruns of Dresden would beat them. Flash and Dr. Who are awful. And now wrestling? I can say that I haven’t watched SciFi since the first 2 Flashes which look and sound like they’re filmed by a high school AV class. I refuse to buy the DVD for fear SciFi reap any of the profits.
82. mike said,
Give me a network executive job. I’ll keep the intelligent shows and cut the dumb ones. Dresden Files was one to keep.
81. An Innocent Bystander said,
My friend gave me the books and told me about the TV show. I loved the books but I was a little skeptical because I heard it was much different from the books.
And then I watched it.
I must say, I fell in love, died, and went to heaven to live with Bob!
And now it’s cancelled. I just show up late for everything, seriously. Oh well…perhaps a petition might get them moving. I’m going to go look for it.