7 Years Ago Today, NBC Launched a Fantasy Series — Then Canceled It and Left Us Hanging

Fantasy is printing money right now. Studios are hoarding book rights and game IP like it is toilet paper in 2020. Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Percy Jackson, The Wheel of Time, The Legend of Vox Machina, Arcane — all hitting in different ways for different audiences, with more on deck like God of War and Fourth Wing. Which is why it still stings that NBC once had a smart, weird little genre hybrid that it bailed on after one summer: The InBetween. Ten episodes. One of the meanest dangling endings in recent network TV. Then… nothing.

The show NBC did not wait for

On May 29, 2019, NBC rolled out The InBetween from veteran producer Moira Kirland (credits include Dark Angel, Castle, Madam Secretary, and the Quantum Leap reboot). It was not a horror show; it was a crime drama spiked with supernatural fantasy — less jump scares, more visions and moral gray areas — and it was ahead of the current curve on genre mashups.

• Premiere: May 29, 2019 on NBC; ran 1 season, 10 episodes
• Premise: Cassie Bedford (Harriet Dyer), a bartender with the unwanted ability to see and talk to the dead and to glimpse past events, tries to use those 'gifts' instead of letting them destroy her like they did her mom
• Cop connection: Cassie teams with her foster dad, Detective Tom Hackett (Paul Blackthorne), and his new partner, Damien (Justin Cornwell), to help crack cases
• Home life tension: Tom's husband Brian (Michael B. Silver), a therapist, is deeply skeptical about leaning on Cassie's visions given how fragile she is
• Worldbuilding: The 'In-Between' is a liminal realm where souls with unfinished business hang around until they move on — up or down
• Fantasy angle: Cassie is a modern spin on the classic 'seer' trope — visions are cryptic, incomplete, and maddeningly unhelpful until they are not

Why it slipped through the cracks in 2019

Back then, fantasy on TV was still mostly living in castles or clearly labeled as 'supernatural.' The InBetween landed between audiences: too woo-woo for people who want their police procedurals straight, too cop-show for viewers chasing prophecies and quests. Meanwhile, the kind of hybrid it was trying to be is exactly what hits now — look at Arcane, which basically lives at the intersection of steampunk and magic and gets called 'science fantasy' for a reason. Timing is everything, and NBC's timing here was rough.

The finale that still bugs people (spoilers ahead)

Season 1 wrapped its big arc — the Ed Roven mess — in a pretty gnarly way. Cassie figured out that her so-called spirit guide, Ed Roven (Sean Bolger), was actually a sadistic serial killer when he was alive, and he had been using the In-Between to keep 'working' through living conduits like Mark Waterman. Great villain twist, genuinely unsettling, and it showed how dangerous Cassie's abilities could be.

They beat him. Roven got sent to hell. Case closed… and then the show kicked the door open on something much more personal. Tom's husband Brian needed life-saving surgery, and when Cassie checked in with him, she caught a glimpse in a mirror: Brian's reflection turned dark — the same way Roven's true face would punch through. Translation: Cassie's second sight was about to detonate her home life in Season 2, putting every relationship on the board in question. And that is the last we got.

Do we ever get more?

Never say never, but do not hold your breath. Revivals are long shots even for shows that had bigger footprints than this one. That said, if a bunch of people suddenly revisit it and the viewing data spikes somewhere, weird things can happen. For now, The InBetween is buy-only: you can pick it up on YouTube and Amazon Prime Video.

Bottom line: it was a thoughtful, slightly off-center fantasy procedural that probably would play better in today’s everything-is-a-remix TV climate. NBC blinked, and the rest of us are stuck with a mirror shot that still lives rent-free.