It took awhile, but we finally have our first officially cancelled show of the 2015-2016 television season. ABC has cancelled Wicked City after only three episodes.
The 1980s-set serial killer drama was bashed by critics, who thought it glamorized sex and violence. It starred Ed Westwick, Erika Christensen and Jeremy Sisto. Steven Baigelman created the show and Amy B. Harris was the showrunner, notes Variety.
Wicked City was airing on Tuesday nights, but will immediately be replaced by Shark Tank repeats.
Wicked City is the first show officially cancelled from this fall, although many shows on the chopping block have been allowed to air their already-produced episodes. For example, Fox has cut Minority Report to 10 episodes, but the show is still airing. It is not on Fox’s winter schedule, so it’s safe to assume that it will eventually be cancelled.
EW notes that ABC has also cut the episode order for Blood & Oil and NBC did the same with The Player.
While the fact that no shows were cancelled until November might make the season sound like a success, that’s far from the truth. Ratings are still low across the board, but networks have started to figure out that shows can also earn an audience from DVR viewings and streaming. On top of that, many of the networks don’t have a lot of extra shows in the back to replace cancelled shows with.