FX announced this afternoon that their vampire-pocalypse series The Strain (not to be confused with Syfy’s new vampire-pocalypse series Van Helsing) has been renewed for a fourth season, but that will be its last. According to Variety, the decision to end the series was made by the creative team and originally they had planned on wrapping the show up after three seasons. That makes some sense seeing as it was based on a trilogy of books Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, though I haven’t been keeping close track of the show so I don’t know how well it is following the source material. The Strain‘s ratings have been on the decline, though it has seen decent Live+3 delayed viewing gains this year (more important to the cable channels than the broadcast nets). But the four to six season range has been what we have been seeing from moderate to low rated cable shows of late and provides a binge-worthy run for a show. Season 3 will conclude on October 30th and the fourth season will air likely around mid-to-late 2017.
Amazon announced today that they have picked up their pilot for The Tick to series. Released last month on the streaming service for viewers to vote on whether they wanted it to continue, this round of pilots (which also included non-genre entries I Love Dick and Jean-Claude Van Johnson) was Amazon’s most watched to date. This is a live action version of Ben Edlund’s comic book character and Patrick Warburton is onboard as executive producer (he was originally supposed to reprise his role as the title character, but other commitments kept him from returning). This version is darker than the 2000 live-action series that aired briefly on FOX and starred Warburton, and you can read my review of the pilot at this link. The series is scheduled to bow in 2017 and the pilot is still available for viewing at Amazon.
