The Orville and 8 other genre shows we’re afraid will be cancelled in 2023

The Peripheral

The Peripheral is about a gaming device that lets people travel through time, after a fashion. Based on the novel by William Gibson, it was created by the people who made Westworld, so it comes with some sci-fi bona fides. The Peripheral was tightly written, well-acted and powerfully imagined. It definitely picked up fans during its premiere season, but did it pick up enough for a sophomore outing?

Creator Lisa Joy certainly hopes so. “I would love to have season two and season three and all the seasons in the world to explore this amazing, amazing novel,” she told Radio Times. “I know we’ve already started brainstorming about season two in the hopes that we get a season two, and the world only gets more vast and complicated.”

This is Amazon we’re talking about, so we know they have the money. But do they want to spend it on The Peripheral when they also have expensive shows like The Wheel of Time and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power to attend to? We await their answer.

The Nevers

Here’s another odd one. So The Nevers is a Victorian sci-fi/fantasy series originated by Joss Whedon, the since-disgraced creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and director of the first two Avengers movies. The show filmed the part of its first season and then had to stop due to complications with the pandemic. The first half of season 1 aired on HBO in 2021, with the rest due to come along sometimes in the near-ish future.

And those other episodes may air, but it won’t be on HBO. If they’re aired at all, it’ll be on FAST TV, aka free ad-supported streaming TV services, which basically means they’ll be burned off where no one will see them. The show isn’t cancelled, per se, but it doesn’t look like Warner Bros. Discovery has any intention of continuing it after this.

I enjoyed what I saw of The Nevers, but between Joss Whedon leaving over his scandals, the high concept, the high budget, and the relative lack of buzz, I guess I can understand the studio wanting to wash their hands of it.

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