Almost Human All The Way Cancelled By Fox
Is anyone surprised?
This article is more than 2 years old
Fox, that no good son of a bitch network, has gone and done what we all knew was coming, but hoped in our mechanical heart of hearts that it wasn’t. They officially pulled the plug on Almost Human, making the futuristic actioner the latest in a long line of fan-favorite series that Fox has treated like dirt before putting it in a grave. This final insult’s only silver lining is that we get to avoid talking about that channel for a while, at least until we get word that they’re cancelling Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey before the last two episodes air.
Whatever happened to just sticking a show on a Friday night when it wasn’t a ratings bonanza, letting a higher-profile series pick up the slack? That’s what they did with Fringe, a series that actually found new life and became a hit on the less TV-friendly night. Considering both shows have J.H. Wyman and J.J. Abrams at their center, one might have thought a softer decision would have been made about Almost Human‘s fate. I guess adding Karl Urban to the mix wasn’t ever going to fare well, as a potential sequel to his version of Dredd is the subject of a widespread fan campaign that hasn’t yet worked out. I expect a similar tactic will be used to get Almost Human back on the air. People just need to make sure they start watching things when they’re actually playing.
For one season, Urban starred as John Kennex, a detective whose line of duty injuries were treated with cybernetic prosthetics, making him a prime partner for a police android named Dorian (Michael Ealy). An early model cyborg, Dorian was equipped with human emotions, and there was real chemistry in the Ealy/Urban team-up. Almost Human admittedly wasn’t groundbreaking television, but each episode was packed with big ideas, and it could have easily become something really special with another season to mature and build a mythos. I guess we’ll NEVER KNOW, will we Fox? Maybe NEXT TIME, don’t run a series’ episodes out of order!
Though its ratings dipped from a series premiere high of 9.1 million total viewers, pulling in 5.6 million average viewers a week is no mean feat in this day and age of cable overload and episode pirating. Almost Human matched up with Kevin Bacon’s ridiculous thriller The Following, but that show was renewed for a third season recently. It appears to be more of an issue with low demographic numbers (1.5 in the 5.6 total) and Fox’s populated upcoming schedule, which will include Rainn Wilson’s crime drama Backstrom, the adventure Hieroglyph, and David Tennant’s murder mystery Gracepoint. I’m still pretty sure they could have found a back burner night to put Almost Human on until people caught up to it.
I guess it’s good that J.J. Abrams had that whole Star Wars Episode VII casting story going on today to help sooth his wounds over this cancellation. I really don’t Fox just happened to coincidentally make that announcement today.
R.I.P. Almost Human. We hardly knew ye.
