FX confirms production plans for Y: The Last Man, What We Do in the Shadows

Despite the pandemic, FX is working hard on giving us more hilarious vampire comedy and hotly anticipated comic book adaptations.

Hollywood has been hit hard by the coronavirus, with productions slowing down or stopping around the world. But as studios get better at implementing safety procedures, things are picking back up again, although we likely won’t get new episodes of some of our favorite shows as soon as we would have otherwise.

Take What We Do in the Shadows, the stark raving hilarious vampire sitcom from Taika Waititi, on FX. The show debuted a couple years back and almost immediately gained a cult following, which is only just and proper, because it’s awesome. Originally it was going to start filming this fall, but according to Chairman of FX Networks and FX Productions John Landgraf, it’ll now start up in early 2021.

Landgraf made his comments at the (virtual) Television Critics Association FX fall press day. He also mentioned that the next season of American Horror Story would be gearing up to shoot in 2021, and that the fourth season of Fargo had just wrapped. “We maintained as much isolation as possible,” Landgraf said. “And we’re still learning. We’re committed to getting better each day and each week.”

Landgraf also gave an update FX’s long-gestating adaptation of Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra’s comic book Y: The Last Man (FX will just call it Y), a post-apocalyptic story about the last man left alive on a planet now populated almost exclusively by women. That series has had some turnover issues, but should go into production later in 2021.

When Y does come out, Hulu subscribers will be well positioned to see it, since the network and the streaming service have entered into a partnership that has resulted in a “transformative” number of eyeballs on these series. With the partnership in place, viewership on What We Do in the Shadows increased by 54 percent for season 2.

The fact that FX had to partner up with a streaming service for its shows to get attention isn’t a good sign for cable networks, but I’m glad it happened, because without the Hulu partnership I doubt I would have discovered excellent shows like What We Do in the Shadows or Mrs. America. So bully for them.

Finally, Landgraf touched on how the content he and his team make may change in the wake of both the pandemic and the social upheaval going on in the US in 2020. “I’m the oldest person in the development group now so I rely on the younger generation who have strong and clear opinions,” he said. “That clearly will change all programming. And my love of the art of narrative storytelling has always been its ability to see stories through different eyes and be in others shoes. Yet the very thing designed to expand our field of vision has been so narrow. When we throw that off and open up to the whole planet and any human experience is now available to access. The platinum age of TV goes on and on and continues with new points of view. FX [is] always on the vanguard and is always looking for something that hasn’t been on TV before.”

I’m glad FX has found a way to keep itself and its shows relevant during a time of increased competition, because they really do make some excellent stuff.

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h/t SyFy Wire