Syfy slipped in an announcement late Friday that their freshman series Hunters will not be continuing to a second season. The move comes as no surprise and I have been predicting the cancellation for several weeks. The show has only averaged a 0.08 rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic and it has not seen much in the way of delayed viewing gains or a following on the social networks (both of which are more important to the cable channels than the broadcast networks). It also did not appear to have much in the way of international financing or partnerships backing it and it was received poorly by critics and genre fans. After bowing to tepid numbers back in April, it saw those drop even further and then it was kicked to the midnight hour on Mondays. That was a pretty clear signal that the show was in burn-off mode and would not be picked up by Syfy for a second year. The network has typically been giving its new shows two seasons to prove themselves of late, but apparently decided not to go that route with this one, similar to what we saw with Olympus last year. The season / series finale for Hunters will air on Monday, July 11th.
Last week Syfy announced that 12 Monkeys will be coming back for a third season, leaving only Wynnona Earp among that network’s Spring shows still awaiting word on its fate. That one has actually been the best rated of Syfy’s recent crop and seeing as it is inexpensive to produce and has developed a following on the social networks, I believe it has a decent chance of surviving to a second season. Other Spring shows awaiting word on their fates include Freeform’s Stitchers and Chiller’s Slasher. Be sure to stay tuned to this site and the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for any breaking those and other genre shows.
Science fiction is supposed to be intriguing and interesting, but Hunters was simply weird and extremely hard to follow as the storyline jumped all over the place. I watched the first 5 episodes, but gave up on it after that.
I don’t know what Hunters was trying to be, but a good premise was ruined by very back execution and story telling.