A combination of reasons led to CBS's vampire drama "Moonlight" being canceled: Weak ratings, tough competition and the awkward case of "Jericho." No one of them would have been enough to kill it alone (vampires, along with their shows, being famously difficult to put down), but together they amounted to a stake through "Moonlight's" heart.

Its ratings were not terrible, but they were lower than the shows airing before ("Ghost Whisperer") and afterwards ("Numb3rs"). That's usually a bad sign.

Mentioning those shows brings to mind the fact that CBS had a heck of a schedule in the late '00s. All three CSIs were going strong, as were fellow procedurals "NCIS," "Cold Case" and "Criminal Minds." A little show called "The Big Bang Theory" was just entering its second season, building on the sitcom success started three years earlier with "How I Met Your Mother." Also, reality shows "The Amazing Race," "Survivor" and "Big Brother" were still in their prime. That's a pretty tough schedule for a new show to squeeze into.

Adding to that, CBS had just recently shown a surprising amount of patience with a rookie show and been burned for it. When word got out that "Moonlight" might get canceled, its incredibly devoted fans organized a number of campaigns, including a charmingly innovative blood drive in the show's name, to push for a renewal. Unfortunately, the network had gone through the same thing the previous year with freshman series "Jericho": After CBS canceled it in 2007, rabid fans organized such a large save-the-show campaign that the network changed its mind and renewed it. But the ratings only got worse, so less than a year later, CBS had to go through the ignominy of canceling it a second time.

Commenting back in 2008 on "Moonlight's" chances of renewal, TVSeriesFinale.com's Trevor Kimball wrote, "CBS likely feels a bit burned by that experience and is reluctant to go down that road again."

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