Coming as no surprise, Showtime’s sci fi series The Man Who Fell to Earth has been cancelled after one season. That show debuted in April 2022 with little promotion and only averaged a 0.02 rating (two one-hundredths of a ratings point) based on same-day viewing for the 18-49 demographic across its ten-episode run. The premium cable channels do not pay as much attention to the same-day viewing because their revenue comes from subscriptions not advertising. But those still act as a leading indicator of audience size and a 0.02 score is quite small for a show that almost certainly had a sizeable budget. It likely made up some slack with delayed and digital viewing as well as encore runs, but not enough to convince network execs that the show was driving much in the way of new subscriptions and I had it On the Bubble since early in its run. A Showtime spokesman had the following to say about the cancellation:
Our thanks to the extraordinary Alex Kurtzman, Jenny Lumet, John Hlavin and Sarah Timberman who did a great job of turning the David Bowie film into such a resonant tale for our times. And kudos to a wondrous cast led by Chiwetel Ejiofor, Naomie Harris and Bill Nighy for bringing it to life. Alex and Jenny originally intended The Man Who Fell To Earth to be a close-ended story. While we flirted with the idea of expanding it into a second season, we all ultimately decided to embrace it as a one season story well told.
The series was originally in development at CBS All Access before that streaming service changed its name to Paramount+. It then switched over to Showtime (which is under the same corporate ownership) but did not get much in the way of promotion from that cabler. And there was apparently not enough nostalgia value from the 1976 cult film that starred David Bowie to draw much of an audience. It did manage to wrap up its main storylines, so as not to end on a cliffhanger, but it could have potentially carried on to a second season and more. It seems unlikely that the property will get shopped around to another network and it also did not appear to garner much of a fan following so I don’t know if we will see much of an attempt to lobby for a second season.
The Man Who Fell to Earth follows the alien who goes by the name of Faraday who comes to our planet to find former physicist Justin Falls who will help him to develop a technology that will save his world, a mission never completed by Thomas Newton who had come to Earth in the ’70s. It stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Naomie Harris, Annelle Olaleye, Clarke Peters, Bill Nighy, and Jimmi Simpson and acts as a sequel to the 1976 film of the same name which was based on the book by Walter Tevis.
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Sucks, I enjoyed watching this show..
Yet another Kurtzman failure
The show may not have lasted, but I would not call it a failure on the part of Kurtzman. This was a good show that was thoughtful and had some interesting sci fi concepts. It hearkens back more to his work on Fringe and has less of the excess we have seen with his work on the Star Trek franchise. You can see my review at this link: https://scifitvsite.com/2022/10/13/recommended-sci-fi-tv-the-man-who-fell-to-earth/