It’s a tale as old as time, or at least as old as Fox. Viewer meets show, viewer becomes fan, fan becomes invested, show gets canceled. Unfortunately, NOS4A2, AMC’s adaptation of Joe Hill’s 2013 novel of the same name, has fallen to the same fate. AMC has officially canceled the show after 2 seasons.
In a tweet from showrunner Jami O’Brien, the show’s creator announced the cancellation barely a week after the show’s second season finale. “Well friends,” he tweeted, “I heard from AMC last week. We won’t be making a 3rd season of #NOS4A2. It’s a bummer, but I’m grateful we were at least able to finish adapting the storyline from Joe Hill’s terrific novel.”
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He went on to thank the fans, cast, and crew in a heartfelt show of gratitude before expressing hopes that they might all come together again in some form one day. The series had been enjoying a gradual improvement in review scores between seasons 1 and 2 just before the cancellation, though its ratings appeared to be trending in the opposite direction.
NOS4A2 drew a small but dedicated fanbase, thanks to its creative setting and accuracy to the source material. Starring Ashleigh Cummings as lead character Victoria “Vic” McQueen, the show features Vic as she discovers a supernatural ability to find lost things. Since people are technically things, it allows her to find another supernatural being, Charlie Manx (Zachary Quinto). Manx, who is seemingly immortal, is a twisted individual who feeds off the souls of children. Vic resolves to stop Manx and rescue his victims from Christmasland, a surreal world of his creation where he leaves the children he attacks.
As O’Brien mentioned in his tweets, the series managed to finish the main storyline from the novel in the time it was given, which is much more than many other shows are able to accomplish before being canceled. In fact, that may make NOS4A2 an ideal show to binge now, seeing as there’s no waiting for new episodes and loose ends are apparently tied up. True, it might be a rather morbid way to look at things, but that’s just how optimism works sometimes.
Hopefully the cast and crew behind NOS4A2 manage to move to new projects quickly, since a cancellation is never easy to plan for. Plus, who knows? Maybe over time it will gain a Firefly-esque cult following and inspire a continuation in movies, comics, or even another season. True, that would be depressingly ironic, seeing as how Firefly itself is still confined to a single season, but it can’t hurt to hope.
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Source: Jami O’Brien/Twitter
