© HBO, Sky Atlantic & NowTVIt's madness.
That's how people always feel when a show they love with real potential suddenly gets axed.
It happened to Netflix's 'Seven Seconds' with Regina King, Beau Knapp, Clare Hope-Ashitey and Michael Mosley which really merited a second series.
Others understandably felt aggrieved that Hulu did the same recently to the Elle Fanning and Nicolas Hoult period comedy drama 'The Great' or when HBO shut down the Dustin Hoffman betting drama 'Luck' after one series.
© HBO, Sky Atlantic & NowTVNow you can add 'Winning Time: Rise of the Lakers Dynasty' to that list.
And it has to be said the disappointment and anger at HBO is fully justified.
HBO unearthed a real gem last year with the first season of Max Borenstein and Jim Hecht's show about the rise of the LA Lakers.
A well written, highly entertaining show, you didn't have to know much about the Lakers or basketball or the NBA to enjoy it.
It had a terrific cast, with John C Reilly, Adrien Brody, Jason Segel, Jason Clarke, Rob Morgan, Gaby Hoffman, Tracy Letts, Michael Chiklis and Sally Field on the roster.
© HBO, Sky Atlantic & NowTVThe show also boasted potentially star making roles for Quincy Isaiah as Magic Johnson, Hadley Robinson as Jeannie Buss, Solomon Hughes as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tamera Tomakili as Cookie Kelly and Sean Patrick Small as Larry Bird.
'Winning Time' was smart.
It was funny. It was educational and insightful.
However after a seven episode second season run, it's been unceremoniously dumped in the middle of the Hollywood writers' strike.
© HBO, Sky Atlantic & NowTVYou can't help but feel that people ought to be kicking up more of a fuss.
(SPOILERS ALERT)
At the end of season one, John C Reilly's playboy and LA Lakers owner Dr Jerry Buss was celebrating a NBA title win over the Philadelphia 76ers.
Kareem, however, had to bow out of the final game due to an ankle injury.
However Magic Johnson, who was still smarting from being overlooked as the NBA's Rookie of the Year, stepped up and inspired the squad to victory.
Season two finds the Lakers having to do it all over again, with Jason Segel's head coach Paul Westhead revelling in media coverage hailing him as a tactical genius.
© HBO, Sky Atlantic & NowTVHe's wedded, however, to a system that blunts Magic's style of play and that brings the two of them into conflict.
Magic's celebrity and Buss's willingness to break salary records to placate him unsettles the squad who start to implode on the court.
Westhead's insistence that the team doggedly stick to his plan drives a wedge between him and his assistant coach, Adrien Brody's Pat Riley whose advice he consistently disregards.
Caught between a messy love life and an obsession with sticking it to the Lakers' great rivals the Boston Celtics, Jerry Buss is increasingly frustrated by the team's lacklustre performances.
© HBO, Sky Atlantic & NowTVHe is distracted, however, by the reappearance of an old flame, Ari Graynor's Honey Kaplan who he decides to marry, much to the chagrin of his daughter, Hadley Robinson's Jeannie.
Jeannie is also frustrated by her dad's failure to acknowledge her passion for the business and her ability to run it.
The biggest headache of all, though, is the Boston Celtics.
Their owner, Michael Chiklis' Red Auerbach and star player, Sean Patrick Small's Larry Bird are fierce opponents and will stop at nothing on and off the court to get under the skin and in the heads of the Lakers.
© HBO, Sky Atlantic & NowTVBuss, Magic, Westhead, Riley and Jason Clarke's hotheaded scout Jerry West are rattled and that's not good for the Lakers.
Season two of 'Winning Time' finds Borenstein and Hecht and their co-writers Rodney Barnes and Rebecca Bertuch gallop through two basketball seasons and end with the 1984 NBA final showdown against the Celtics.
The series remains as vibrant as ever as it documents the Lakers' owners, coaching staff and players' triumphs and failures on and off the court.
Reilly and the directors continue to break the fourth wall from time to time to remind audiences how some of the crazy events depicted in the series actually did happen.
© HBO, Sky Atlantic & NowTVDirectors Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Trey Edward Shults, Todd Banhazi and Tanya Hamilton attack the storylines with real vigour.
And once again, Reilly, Isaiah, Brody, Segel, Chiklis, Robinson, Hoffman, Clarke, Hughes, Small and Tomakili deliver enjoyable performances that crackle with real energy.
Graynor is a terrific addition to the cast too and audiences will also be amused by Ta'Nika Gibson, Carina Conti and Max E Williams' brief appearances as the celebrities Debbie Allen, Paula Abdul and Jack Nicholson.
The other impressive feat is the blend of imagery from VHS video cameras, super 8 and 16mm camera footage by a team of cinematographers Todd Banhazi, John Mattysiak, Ricardo Diaz and Darren Tiernan to give it an authentic 1980s feel.
© HBO, Sky Atlantic & NowTVAll of this is skilfully stitched together by a film editing team of Max Koepke, Felicia Mignon Livingston, Jeremy Weinstein, Julian Claborn and Marco Rosas.
Yet it all counts for little at the end.
Just when you feel 'Winning Time' is building up to something really momentous, the second season ends abruptly and in a most unsatisfactory fashion.
Instead of getting the resolution the audience and the programme makers deserve, we are instead bombarded with a series of captions that hastily try to wrap up the story by telling us about the decades that followed.
It just doesn't feel right.
© HBO, Sky Atlantic & NowTVAs you watch the last few minutes unfold, you can't help feeling a little like the Lakers do for most of Season Two - deflated, dejected, cheated and really cheesed off.
The decision by HBO to call it a day and the imposition of an abrupt ending makes the title of the show feel like false advertising.
Like the team the show depicts HBO, by axing 'Winning Time,' has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Instead of celebrating the art of winning, HBO has ensured that everyone has lost.
And that's a crying shame.
(Season two of 'Winning Time: Rise of the Lakers Dynasty' was broadcast in the UK and Ireland on Sky Atlantic and made available for steaming on NowTV from August 7-September 18, 2023)
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