The sci fi drama The Peripheral, which hails from Westworld‘s Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, has been cancelled by Amazon after the streamer reversed the renewal it issued back in February 2023. The show premiered in October 2022 and only made it to the Nielsen Streaming Rankings for one week. It was a very expensive series to produce, and apparently insiders at the company were critical of the renewal because it did not manage to attract enough viewership to justify its cost. Allegedly, Amazon gave the show a greenlight for a second season because there were concerns that cancelling it might jeopardize the development deal that Amazon has with the creators. But as I previously predicted, the writers’ and actors’ strikes have changed the situation in the entertainment industry and the networks are more willing to cancel projects, even those that were previously renewed.
According to Variety, the decision to reverse the renewal was largely driven by the current labor movements. Even if those were to be resolved this year and production were to resume, it is estimated the show would not be back on the small screen until 2025, three years after its first season aired. There is no word at this point on whether it will be shopped around, but since Nolan and Joy have an exclusive deal with Amazon it seems unlikely the property would move to a different venue. Amazon also reversed its renewal on the non-genre entry A League of Their Own, and I would not be surprised to see the same happen with the high-cost but low-viewership (in the U.S.) spy fi series Citadel.
With this show moving from the renewal to the cancellation column, that changes the Cancellation/Renewal Score for the 2022-23 season to 41 cancelled and ending shows (47% of shows tracked) vs. 39 renewed (45%). You can see the breakdown of the numbers and the full list of shows at our Cancellation Watch Page.
The Peripheral takes place in the near future and focuses on an expert VR Gamer who tries out a new interface only to find out that it transfers her consciousness to a future, post-apocalyptic world. There, she finds herself pulled into a power struggle that threatens her world as well as the future of humanity. It stars Chloë Grace Moretz, Gary Carr, Jack Reynor, JJ Feild, T’Nia Miller, and Louis Herthum and it is based on the William Gibson novel of the same name.
With the strikes still in progress, I expect that more cancellations like this will be on the way. You can see the status of all this season’s shows at this link. And be sure to follow this site and the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site in the coming weeks for updates and breaking news.
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