Breaking News: FOX Has Cancelled neXt After Only Two Episodes Aired

Despite a dilapidated and ratings-challenged Fall schedule, FOX has reverted to old school network ways and cancelled its AI-drama neXt without giving it a chance to find an audience. The show debuted on Tuesday nights on October 4th and has aired two episodes so far to modest at best ratings, averaging a 0.3 score based on same-day viewing for the 18-49 demographic. It was then preempted two weeks in a row for sports and will be preempted again this Tuesday for election coverage. It will ostensibly resume airing out its season after that, though don’t be surprised if it gets shifted to low-viewership Fridays. I had not moved the show to Bubble status yet, though I was leaning in that direction. I figured that FOX might give it more of a chance, especially after the sports preemptions, but it’s likely that network execs gave up on this show a while back.

neXt has already taken the long road to the Prime Time schedule as it was originally planned as a mid-season entry last year. Its premiere date was pushed and it was looking like it might get shifted to the Summer schedule, which effectively would translate into a burn-off run. But when the production shutdowns hit, FOX execs decided to hold the show until Fall realizing they would likely have a shortage of scripted programming. It appeared that would give the show a better chance to find an audience, but the ratings have been down notably for the broadcast networks this Fall because most of the regular scripted shows have not returned to the schedule yet. FOX could have perhaps given neXt a better chance of finding an audience by slotting it in after The Voice or one of the network’s other popular unscripted shows. But instead, they scheduled it after the encore run of Cosmos: Possible Worlds which has not been drawing many viewers.  The network made some noise about the cancellation being related to increased production costs in the COVID environment, but that is likely just an excuse to dump a show in which they had little confidence.

neXt has been billed as an “event series”, so the network already had a way of backing out if they did not want it to continue for a second season. We will see if it actually wraps up its storylines at the end of the season, though I consider that to be unlikely. Whether fans will make a Call to Action on the social networks to try and save the show remains to be seen, but that would be an uphill battle.

neXt focuses on the efforts of a homeland cybersecurity team to contain a rogue Artificial Intelligence that has escaped on the Internet and is trying to kill those who threaten it. It stars John Slattery, Fernanda Andrade, Michael Mosley, Gerardo Celasco, and Eve Harlow and the series was created by Manny Cotto (Odyssey 5, Star Trek: Enterprise).

We are still waiting for word on 2019-20 season shows like Netflix’s Cursed, AMC’s Dispatches from Elsewhere, and Hulu’s Castle Rock, so stay tuned for more announcements. You can see the status of all the currently airing, returning, and upcoming sci fi and fantasy shows on our Cancellation Watch Page. And be sure to stay tuned to this site and the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for breaking news and updates.

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