Fox canceled T:tSCC because the ratings were awful.

The ratings were awful because they moved it into the death trap that is known as Friday nights (another of my favs was announced to be moved there this Fall . . . bye bye to that one too) which caused the rating to plummet even more dramatically.

The thing is, networks know this. The ONLY reason they move a show to the death trap is because the ratings aren't QUITE bad enough to cancel it outright, but they want to make room in the schedule for next season. So move it to Friday nights and it's taken care of. It's pure evil.

I think that the ratings were awful back when it was on Mondays was because JUST as it was building a fan base, the writers lost their $hit and started stretching plot lines out to completely unreasonable and unrecognizable extremes. There were whole episodes which took in between key plot episodes that didn't even reference what was currently happening and were never really mentioned again (Sarah being kidnapped?!).

There was voiced frustration on the message boards and people stopped watching. Ratings kept dropping. Fox moved it to Fridays. Ratings dropped further, Fox chose to "not renew it for another season."

My guess about the writing is that they didn't expect it to be a full 23 eipisode season. The creator of the show mentioned he though they were only doing a 13 episode season and then was asked by Fox for another nine. So . . . I think they had already plotted out the whole season and now had to come up with nine garbage episodes fast to shove in there . . . totally ruining the arc of the story.

That's just a guess though.