Fox announced today the cancellation of its two new genre comedies Making History and Son of Zorn, both of which come from executive producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller. Neither of the announcements comes as a huge surprise, though I did think that the latter had a slightly better chance of surviving to a second season. The cancellation of Making History has been expected for a while as that show debuted with tepid ratings, despite a decent lead-in from The Simpsons, and its numbers slipped further in the weeks after its premiere. FOX has essentially had that one in burn-off mode since its ratings slipped to the 0.6 level based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic five episodes into its first season. That show will air its final episode on Sunday May 21st. As for Son of Zorn, its 1.3 ratings average based on the overnights for the demo actually looks pretty good compared to many of the other show’s on FOX’s schedule. But then it had the benefit multiple times of a strong lead-in from NFL bleed-over into Prime Time in Fall. When that show did not have a boosted lead-in, its numbers were typically on the mediocre side. Add to that the fact that it is expensive to produce because of its combination of live action and animation, and apparently it was not an attractive renewal prospect for FOX. Lord and Miller’s other genre comedy for the network The Last Man on Earth did get renewed, even though its ratings have been on the low side this season as well.
Making History follows three people–two from the present and one from the past–traveling to different points in time in order to change the past and improve the present. It stars Adam Pally, Leighton Meester, and Yassir Lester.
Son of Zorn focuses on the cartoon Barbarian named Zorn who tries to reconnect with his human son. It stars Jason Sudeikis, Johnny Pemberton, Cheryl Hines, and Tim Meadows.
With the cancellation of Making History, that officially marks as a failure the time travel trend that we saw pop up across the broadcast nets with 2016-17 season pickups. NBC’s Timeless, ABC’s Time After Time, and The CW’s Frequency all had time travel themes and all have since been cancelled. As for FOX’s other two genre shows awaiting word on their fate–The Exorcist and Scream Queens–no decision has been announced yet, but for all practical purposes they appear to be dead in the water.
Next week the broadcast networks will have their Upfront presentations when they unveil their schedules for the 2017-18 season and there are still more renewal and cancellation announcements on the way (you can see the full rundown of this season’s cancellations and renewals at this link). Be sure to stay tuned to this site and the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for updates and breaking news.
