In the world of television, there is no creator like Bryan Fuller. Starting out as a writer for series like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, Fuller quickly made a name for himself for his original series that mixed fantastical concepts with the real world, showcasing his imagination as a storyteller and his keen eye for human stories, and how these mythical and larger than life stories can influence, impact, and change people. Fuller could take a simple weekly TV crime procedural and give it a unique style and dramatic flair that stands out across a sea of television series.
There are certain hallmarks to a Bryan Fuller series, and sadly, one of those hallmarks is a short time span, either departing early on due to creative differences or networks canceling his series within two or three seasons. Some projects, like his pilot of The Munsters titled Mockingbird Lane or the animated pilot for Sci-Fi channel based on Mike Mignola’s The Amazing Screw-On Head, never even made it to series. This career of short runs and creative changes give his series an outcast energy, with people rooting for his weird televisual underdogs as ’the little series that could.'
Maybe they remain so beloved because they didn’t last long; they ended before they could disappoint like so many other shows, and the hypotheticals of what might have been kept the allure of these series sticking around in audiences’ minds long after they have been canceled. Or maybe, they’re just incredibly imaginative, entirely unique shows. These are the television series Bryan Fuller has created, ranked.
6 Star Trek: Discovery
CBS Studios
While Star Trek: Discovery is a rather good series, the reason it is low on the list is that Bryan Fuller left the series before it even aired. Having worked on Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and with his own accomplished resume of critically acclaimed series, Fuller seemed like the perfect person to help usher Star Trek back to television 12 years since the finale of Star Trek: Enterprise. Fuller worked on the series for a year before stepping down in 2017.
The studio was reportedly frustrated with Fuller splitting his time between Star Trek: Discovery and American Gods. While the producers still worked from Fuller’s notes and outlines, they went with a different path for the series (including a different ship design than Fuller’s, whose original idea can be seen above), and he was replaced by Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts as showrunners. How much of Star Trek: Discovery is what Fuller started out with is currently unknown, but due to developing the series for so long, he still gets the ‘created by’ credit for the series.
5 Wonderfalls
20th Century Fox
Airing for one 13-episode season on Fox in 2004, Wonderfalls tells the story of recent Brown University college graduate Jaye Tyler, who finds herself working at a dead-end job at a gift shop in Niagara Falls. She begins hearing voices from the inanimate objects in the gift shop which help her get involved with various people’s lives. The series has many of the trademarks of a Fuller series, a high concept that merges a fantastical premise with the mundane nature of reality, and it received positive reviews yet never could quite find an audience. Fox did little to promote the series and, despite the creator’s best efforts to get it picked up at another network, was canceled.
4 American Gods
Based on the popular Neil Gaiman book of the same name, American Gods follows Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle) who meets the mysterious Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane) after being released from prison, and is drawn into a conflict between the Old Gods and the New Gods. The series was highly anticipated when it aired on Starz in 2017. Fuller seemed like the perfect fit for the series, given his past track record, and season one received great reviews from critics and audiences.
However, behind-the-scenes conflict led American Gods to lose its showrunners, with Fuller and the series’ other creator Michael Green departing the project after season one, and Kristen Chenoweth (who played Easter) and Gillian Anderson (who played Goddess Media) left the series as well. While the series went on for two more seasons, it never quite captured the magic of the first season; those first eight episodes were something special and showed how far Fuller could push his imagination with a high premium cable budget.
3 Pushing Daisies
ABC Studios
Pitched as a forensic fairy tale, Pushing Daisies tells the story of a pie maker named Ned (Lee Pace) who has the ability to bring anyone back from the dead by touching them, but if he touches them again they die permanently. Also, if he doesn’t touch them within one minute of being reanimated, someone else will die. Ned begins helping a detective solve crimes by waking murdered people up for a minute, but one day discovers his childhood crush was murdered. He brings her back to life but refuses to let her die, and the two try to keep a relationship despite never being able to touch.
From the second it starts, Pushing Daisies lets the audience know what type of show they are getting into, as a storybook comes to life. Every creative decision informs this world and builds delight upon delight; from the bright colorful production design to the series narration being done by Jim Dale (who narrated all seven Harry Potter books on tape for the American markets), the series captures a sense of whimsy and magic like arguably no other.
Pushing Daisies received rave reviews from critics when it aired and was picked up for season two, but sadly the conclusion to the first season happened right as the 2007-2008 Writer’s Strike took effect, and the series was forced on an extended hiatus. Pushing Daisies never recovered from the break and lost many viewers as a result, and the series was unfortunately canceled by ABC.
However, despite only two seasons, Pushing Daises has gained a devoted following as a modern cult classic, with the hopes of this beloved show seeing a reboot or continuation in some form or other.
2 Hannibal
Sony Pictures Television
Anthony Hopkins is so linked to the role of Hannibal Lecter, that it is hard to imagine anyone else in the role. So it seemed like a crazy idea to make a series based on Hannibal Lecter, not only without Hopkins but without the ability to even use or reference Silence of the Lambs, which was the most well-known Lecter storyline, due to copyright issues. However, Bryan Fuller rose to the challenge, and Hannibal premiered on NBC in 2013.
Mads Mikkelsen stepped into the role of Lecter and Hugh Dancy was cast as Will Graham, a role previously played by Edward Norton in Red Dragon and William Petersen in Mindhunter. The series was lavishly praised by critics for its performances, intellect, and stylistic aesthetic, with a dark gothic visual style that helped Hannibal stand out from the crowd; even today, it seems like a complete anomaly in the world of network television, which has never aired something quite like it before or since. The series ran for three seasons, and even after ending in 2015, the show still has a passionate fanbase, with many believing that it remains the best Hannibal Lecter adaptation.
Hannibal’s arrival coincided with a time when many popular films were getting television show adaptations, like the Psycho-related prequel Bates Motel the same year and Fargo the following year. Even with all the competition, Hannibal managed to stand out as arguably the best.
1 Dead Like Me
Showtime
Dead Like Me aired for two seasons on Showtime, and while Fuller left the series five episodes into season one due to creative differences, his artistic DNA is so embedded into the series it can be seen as quintessentially Fuller. The show follows Georgia ‘George’ Lass (Ellen Muth) on the day that she dies and discovers she has been recruited to become a grim reaper, whose job it is to remove souls from people’s bodies before they die and help usher them into the next life. The underrated Muth does a great job in this extremely dry comedy show, which also explores how her death impacts her family.
Dead Like Me has a wonderful cast of great, colorful characters with rich backstories, and tackles concepts of grief and the impact death has on a person, all in a thoughtful way while also maintaining a good sense of humor. Various shows like What We Do In The Shadows, Crazyhead, Ghosted, and others have gotten a lot of great comedy out of depicting the mundane banality of the supernatural, and Dead Like Me helped set the template for that. It showcases Fuller’s ability to merge the fantastical with the dull to comic and inventive effect, perhaps better than anything else.
