I may be the world’s biggest fan of the short-lived action drama Freedom, which ran on defunct broadcast network UPN for just seven episodes between October 2000 and December 2000. Freedom debuted 20 years ago today on Friday, October 27th, 2000. The show starred Holt McCallany, Scarlett Chorvat, Bodhi Elfman, and Darius McCrary as former military personnel fighting a military regime that had taken over the United States of America.
If you’ve never heard of Freedom, check out my article about the show. I wish I had the time to revise and expand it but sadly I don’t. However, I was able to put together a gallery of stills from the series:
Holt McCallany as Owen Decker
Copyright 2000 Warner Bros. Television
I watched every episode of Freedom that UPN aired. Many of them I taped and the few I didn’t, I was able to acquire later on. I created a website dedicated to the show and ran it for several years. Fans from around the world contacted me and shared their stories of watching the show. I have a UPN promotional poster for the show hanging on my wall.
I can vividly remember reading that UPN had cancelled Freedom and being bitterly disappointed. Even worse was the network’s decision not to air every episode. Bizarrely, UPN did air repeats of the first four episodes before pulling the show off the air. The last original episode aired December 22nd, 2000; the final repeat aired January 5th, 2001.
Here are some promotional photos of the cast, courtesy of Getty Images:
It’s possible I’m the only remaining fan of Freedom and the only person who wants to watch the five episodes UPN never aired. All 12 episodes and the original, unaired pilot episode were broadcast in other countries, including Brazil, Greece, and Poland. If you or someone you know has access to the unaired episodes and the original pilot, please contact me.
Did you watch Freedom when it debuted 20 years ago on UPN? Would you like to see the unaired episodes? Hit the comments with your thoughts.
I did watch the series and remember being disappointed but not surprised when it was canceled. Most UPN shows had short lifespans.
Although I thought the action scenes went a little over the top, I admired the series for its message that “it can happen here.”
It would be nice if some platform made it available, including the episodes that never aired in the U.S. I thought I read somewhere that Warner Brothers owns the rights, in which case I would think HBOMax could make it available if they were so inclined.
One bit of trivia: during the first episode, I saw a campaign ad for Harry Browne, probably the only time I’ve seen an ad for a third-party Presidential candidate air on a broadcast network.
I watched it from Singapore and loved it. Got to watch some un-aired in the US episodes.
Hello, the words “It’s possible I’m the only remaining fan of Freedom and the only person who wants to watch the five episodes” – It resonates with me. I’m also looking for this series in full.
If anyone reads this and has a source please be willing to share.
At least the remaining Ep08-13
You down download episodes 1 through 7 at the link below on ARCHIVE.ORG. Not great quality, but at least it’s something. Hopefully somebody gets the rest of the episodes and uploads them there.
https://archive.org/details/Freedom-tv-serie-2000
Wasn’t the unaired episodes shown on The Sci-Fi Channel in 2008?
I don’t believe so. Sci-Fi did show the unaired episodes of Level 9 at least once and it may have been in 2008.