After The TV Bloodbath: What TV Shows Are Renewed, Cancelled, & Which Are MIA – May 2021 Edition
Welcome to “After The TV Bloodbath 2021”, our annual tradition of rounding up the renewed and cancelled tv series from the big five US networks. Last year, due to the pandemic, the cancellations and renewals became more of a slow, torturous death by a thousand cuts, with the fate of shows drip-fed out over a number of months. This year hasn’t quite got back to the traditional Friday night massacre, but also wasn’t quite as protracted as 2020… More of a short skirmish over a few weeks. From a UK perspective, we came through relatively unscathed, although there are a few shows which I’m sure will be missed.
The Cancellations
We begin my mourning our fallen, as we run through the various shows which failed to make it off the battlefield of the 2020-21 tv season. Generally, the violence was pretty evenly handed across the networks, although one was a little more blood-thirsty than the others, whilst another is still deciding the fate of its captives…
Beware the smiling jovial face of an anthropomorphic mouse, as he may be hiding an axe behind his back… ABC was definitely the network that landed the most kills this year. First to go was ‘Stumptown’, the Cobie Smulders drama which had originally been renewed for a second season. However, due to the pandemic delaying production, ABC opted to spring back up much like the villain at the end of a B-movie, and in September last year, thrust a dagger through its back. An eerie silence spread across the battlefield until May 2021, when the homicidal rodent’s bloodlust returned, taking down ‘American Housewife’, ‘Call Your Mother’, ‘Mixed-ish’, and ‘For Life’ all in one blood-filled evening… In a final twist, worthy of M. Night Shyamalan, the murderous mouse turned on the protector of two of their most beloved shows… Krista Vernoff, the showrunner on both ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and ‘Station 19’. She had just birthed her own series as creator, ‘Rebel’. Whilst not as beloved as her older half-siblings, ‘Rebel’ seemed to have a bright future under mama Vernoff’s guidance. However, the evil mouse overlord had other plans, mowing down the newly-born drama after just five episodes…
CBS proved no one is safe when it comes to the cancellation battlefield, although did manage to airlift a couple of shows, whose lives were in the balance, out of danger. Those less fortunate included the legal drama ‘All Rise’, which is difficult to do when the cancellation axe hacks off your legs… And the network disproved the existence of mythical creators, by making ‘The Unicorn’ disappear after two seasons. Despite fashioning an impressive weapon out of only paper clips and sticky tape, ‘MacGyver’ could not protect himself from the sharp blade of the cancellation hatchet, and the team at ‘NCIS: New Orleans’ just weren’t strong enough to fend off the onslaught after seven seasons.
Clearly worried about the rise of the machines, FOX unplugged AI-drama ‘neXt’ after only two episodes had aired. They also decided they weren’t going to get ‘Filthy Rich’ keeping that show on air, so brought down the cancellation axe after one season. Even animated shows weren’t safe this year, with ‘Bless the Harts’ getting rubbed out after two seasons. That leaves FOX’s toughest foe… A charismatic serial killer and his FBI-profiler son… Even the addition of the Oscar-winning Catherine Zeta-Jones couldn’t save FOX from despatching ‘Prodigal Son’ after two seasons.
NBC‘s wily old Peacock likes to lull its prey into thinking it’s safe, only to fan out its feathers to reveal they’ve taped razor blades to the ends… At the moment, NBC has only cancelled two shows – The sitcom ‘Connecting’ and reality series ‘World of Dance’. But before you breathe a sigh of relief, you might want to check the basement… Chained to the walls down there, the blood-thirsty Peacock is still holding ‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist’, ‘Good Girls’, ‘Manifest’ and ‘Debris’. Negotiators have been sent in to try and calm the feathery beast, but there is a good chance that not all the hostages will make it out alive…
UPDATE 28/05/21: ‘Debris’ has been the first to fall to the feathery fowl as NBC cancels the show after 1 Season.
Lastly, we come to the happy, fluffy, joy-joy world of The CW. Once again, they cancelled nothing… Not a single show. They do have a couple of series coming to an end, with both ‘Black Lightning’ and ‘Supergirl’ retiring from the Arrowverse, but both shows are ending with proper finales, not cancelled, and bow out on their own terms.
The Renewals
Next, we move on to the happier news of the series with will be coming back. As we look over the battlefield from our side of the pond, there are a lot of familiar faces still standing to fight another day. A couple looked a little shaky there for a while but were airlifted to the safety of a US streaming service where they will hopefully thrive.
After managing to tranquilise Disney’s murder mouse, ABC rescued Nathan Fillion’s ‘The Rookie’ and drama ‘A Million Little Things’, both of which return for 4th Seasons; Comedy ‘The Goldbergs’, which lands a 9th Season, ‘The Conners’ for Season 4, and ‘Home Economics’, which lands a 2nd Season. Also returning are ‘The Good Doctor’, ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, ‘Station 19’, and ‘Big Sky’. ‘Black-ish’ will be back-ish… That returns for an 8th and final season.
CBS gave a three-season renewal to ‘Young Sheldon’, meaning that will run for at least seven seasons. Other returning comedies include ‘Bob Hearts Abishola’ and ‘The Neighborhood’, which are joined by freshman comedies ‘United States of Al’ and ‘B Positive’. ‘Blue Bloods’ will be back on the beat along with other law enforcement dramas ‘S.W.A.T.’, ‘FBI’, ‘FBI: Most Wanted’, ‘NCIS’, and ‘NCIS: LA’. Other procedurals returning include ‘Bull’, ‘The Equalizer’ and ‘Magnum P.I.’. Those shows I mentioned being “airlifted” out of harm’s way are ‘SEAL Team’ and ‘Evil’, both of which will move over on to the ViacomCBS streaming service Paramount+ for their new seasons (it’ll make no difference to the UK broadcasters for us on this side of the Atlantic.)
NBC were already in a pretty strong position, having already handed out a bunch of multi-season renewals last year. All the Chicago’s were given three more seasons, meaning ‘Chicago Fire’, ‘Chicago Med’, and ‘Chicago P.D.’ have at least two more seasons left before they need to renegotiate. ‘Law & Order: SVU’ and ‘New Amsterdam’ also have got two more seasons before NBC needs to chat with them again. New freshman series ‘Law & Order: Organized Crime’, ‘Transplant’, ‘Mr. Mayor’, and ‘Kenan’ will all be back. ‘Young Rock’ will also return, because… I mean… would you have wanted to be the one to have to tell Dwayne Johnson if his show was cancelled? No? Me neither! In addition to those, It was confirmed that ‘This Is Us’, which was previously given a three-season renewal, would be ending on its sixth season. This was largely expected, given the man behind the drama, Dan Fogelman, had previously said a number of times that his plan was always for a 6 Season story arc.
Over on FOX, the show which will seemingly never die, ‘The Simpsons’, got a two-season renewal, taking it up to Season 34. The other animated shows did pretty well too, with ‘Bob’s Burgers’, ‘Duncanville’ and ‘Family Guy’ getting new seasons, and ‘The Great North’ getting a two-season renewal. On the live-action side of things, ‘The Resident’ is still “residing” as that lands a new season, along with ‘9-1-1’ and ‘9-1-1: Lone Star’, which also come back to the rescue. Despite not having the greatest numbers, Mayim Bialik’s sitcom ‘Call Me Kat’, which is based on beloved UK show ‘Miranda’, managed to survive into a 2nd Season.
In the colourful rainbow world of The CW, once again, they handed out early renewals to basically everything on their slate. That means new seasons of ‘DC’s Legends of Tomorrow’, ‘Stargirl’, ‘Superman & Lois’, ‘The Flash’, ‘Charmed’, ‘Coroner’, ‘Dynasty’, ‘In the Dark’, ‘Kung Fu’, ‘Legacies’, ‘Nancy Drew’, ‘Riverdale’, ‘Roswell, New Mexico’, and ‘Walker’. ‘The Outpost’ has not yet technically been renewed for a 4th Season, however, they did add thirteen more episodes to Season 3, which makes it over twice the length of the previous seasons, so it was effectively renewed.
Still Missing In Action
At this point, there are not a huge number of shows still left undecided. As I mentioned earlier, NBC has the biggest selection with ‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist’, ‘Good Girls’, and ‘Manifest’ still locked in their murder basement awaiting rescue. CBS still has ‘Clarice’, the Hannibal Lecter show without Hannibal Lecter in it, awaiting trial, and might be another one they transition to Paramount+. ABC‘s rampaging rodent did its job, so they have nothing else outstanding. FOX does technically still have Denis Leary and Elizabeth Perkins comedy ‘The Moodys’, but given it was pulled from the schedules before finishing its run, it seems extremely unlikely to get another shot. Lastly, The CW has yet to air ‘Republic of Sarah’, but it’s The CW, so something would have to go very wrong for that not to be renewed.
There will still be a lot more news about the various new shows (check the home page!) and some more renewals & cancellations over the next week as the US networks get all their ducks (or murderous mice and peacocks) in a row. Check back in for all the latest info!
