‘The Glades’ canceled by A&E after four seasons; shocked?

This is an announcement that we certainly did not plan on making today. Multiple sources confirm that after four years, and really being responsible for bringing A&E into the scripted arena, “The Glades” has been canceled by the network.

This news comes a day after reports indicated that “Longmire” would return for a third season, and you already know about the upcoming second season of “Bates Motel.” While “The Glades” was not a ratings beast, it drew its best numbers of the season on Monday night, and it seemed perfectly suited as a slice of summer programming for a network that really does not have that much else going on this time of year save for “Duck Dynasty,” “Modern Dads,” and the aforementioned shows.

Typically, we can understand from some perspective why a show is canceled. Maybe the budget here was high to the point where it did not make sense to keep it, but we don’t understand this decision by any means. For a network to cancel its first major scripted hit like this, and not allow it a chance to have a proper ending, sets a sad precedent for both viewers and even future content creators. Why not give the show a chance to at least appropriately wrap up the story? If the network will be this merciless about “The Glades,” who knows what will happen to “Bates Motel” and “Longmire” down the road? It may be wrong to think this way, but we like to imagine that cable networks have an added sense of responsibility to their viewers to keep shows around, mostly because you are literally spending your own money to get them more so than broadcast TV.

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