Wayward Pines is Officially Done at FOX
There are so many shows on television these days that some networks do not get around to cancelling them for two years after they have finished their most recent season. FOX announced just yesterday that its Summer series Wayward Pines will not be coming back for a third season, even though it last aired in 2016. The network had been hanging on to that M. Night Shyamalan produced series and had indicated in January of 2017 that they would like to do a third season but that it “didn’t come together quickly enough” for the Summer 2017 season. Shyamalan had said previously that he hoped the show would continue for one more year so that we can “finish the story”. But now it appears that will not happen unless he shops the show around to other venues. It’s possible that Wayward Pines got purged from the development queue because of the Disney buyout. It’s also possible that scheduling issues made it too difficult for Shyamalan to turn his attention back to the show. But the fact is that its ratings were not great in its second year and perhaps FOX just decided to close the book on this one and move on with new projects.
Wayward Pines follows an FBI agent who finds himself trapped in a mysterious town that no one seems to be able to leave. As he tries to uncover the truth about the town, he discovers a much greater terror beyond its borders. M. Night Shyamalan directed the pilot and executive produced the show. It stars Matt Dillon, Toby Jones, Shannyn Sossamon, Jason Patric, and Charlie Tahan.
This is just one of several shows that we had not heard word on for a year or more. Others still with uncertain fates include Between (Netflix, likely cancelled), Cleverman (Sundance, likely cancelled), Dimension 404 (Hulu, likely ended), and From Dusk Till Dawn (El Rey, likely cancelled). Be sure to stay tuned to this site and the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for updates on these and more.
The Showrunner for The Exorcist Gets a New Gig
Amazon has renewed its docudrama series Lore for a second season and will be bringing on the showrunner for FOX’s The Exorcist Sean Crouch. It is uncertain what that means for the low-rated FOX series that wrapped up its second season in Fall, but Crouch could potentially work on both since Lore ran only six episodes during its first season and The Exorcist usually runs ten. For those not familiar with the Amazon series, it comes from Gale Ann Hurd (with Glen Morgan as Season 1’s showrunner) and looks at the historical evidence behind folklore that has inspired horror legends. The first season is streaming on Amazon video and is worth checking out. I expect that we will hear word on the fate of The Exorcist in May when FOX presents its 2018-19 schedule at the Upfronts.
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Ratings Results of Interest: The Walking Dead Improves With Its Mid-Season Premiere
On Sunday, AMC’s The Walking Dead returned from hiatus and pulled a 3.6 rating based on same day viewing for the 18-49 demographic with 8.3 million total viewers. That is an improvement on the 3.4 score it had for its Fall finale, but it is below its season-to-date average and well below the 5.7 rating the show had for its mid-season premiere last year. It did have to contend with competition from the Olympics closing ceremonies, but considering that a major character death was expected in this episode, it appears that the show has not managed to build back up its audience much. We will see next week if the “Walking Dexit” looks like it will continue for this show.
Over on Starz, Ash vs. Evil Dead returned for its third season and only managed a 0.10 rating with 225K total viewers, down from the 0.14 rating it averaged last season. Of course it is going directly against The Walking Dead now and it also had to contend with the Olympic closing ceremonies, so we will see if this one improves next week. In the lead-in hour, Counterpart improved a tick from last week to a 0.11 rating with 429K total viewers. That one has already been renewed for a second season and production begins on that this week. On Saturday, USA’s Falling Water slipped to a series low 0.06 rating with 197K total viewers, though maybe it will see some improvement this coming week without competition from the Olympics.
I covered the ratings activity from earlier in the week at this link and you can see the full ratings results at this link. And you can keep up with the latest ratings results throughout the week at the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site.
