Why was the TV show Highway To Heaven discontinued after Season 5?

Answer 1

It was already decided the show would be cancelled because the ratings had dropped- but it stopped mid-season after Victor French got real sick and eventually passed away. Michael Landon had been asked to finish the season without him- but he ordered the studio to instantly cancel the show instead.

Answer 2

Websites say because the show was getting too expensive to produce more episodes. Other reasons are the fans were very upset with all the changes, and the writers decided to cancel the show and stop the complaints. They fired John Rhys Davies for apparently making a joke about one of the producer's wives, Sabrina Lloyd quit to act or do something else, plus she fought with Kari Wuhrer and they decided to keep Kari over her, Charlie O'Connel was hired only because of Jerry O'Connel, who left after they 1. refused to promote him to executive producer, and 2. they fired the others, so he left, causing Charlie to be fired along with him... They replaced both of them in the S5 premiere, and did not show the faces of the other actors, who had very different voices, making it obvious enough they were not the O'Connel's. After S5 had been going, fans got very upset, even sending death threats and hate mail (apparently) so they made the final episode with them as a show, and signs with real fan reactions, such as "BRING WADE BACK" "WHERE ARE QUINN AND COLIN" and the whole "BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND: PROFESSOR ARTURO" thing the sliders saw on TV... The writers were fed up, had a low budget, and screwed the fans over by cancelling SLIDERS. Although the reactions were bad, Arturo dying added Maggie, who was another great character, Wade being captured added Colin, who was also great, and Quinn being fused added Mallory, and Colin being unstuck added Diana... The initial premise of S5 was to find a way to get Quinn out of Mallory, and find and stabilize Colin, once the fans figured out why the O'Connel's were gone, they changed the premise to getting home, with their original intention supposedly impossible. The show went downward, but also added more great storylines and characters to compensate. And the best part is that the show was epic, and will always be epic, since fans continued it through fanfictions, etc.