Amazon cancels Panic

Amazon took a deep breath, a few centering moments to itself, and then banished Panic this weekend, with Deadline reporting that the single-season drama is dead at the streaming service. Created by Lauren Oliver—working from her 2014 novel of the same name—the series aired its 10 episodes back in May, telling the story of Heather Nill, a Texan teen hoping to escape her dispiriting town and drug addict mother by competing in a dangerous competition.

We were fairly warm on Panic, as it happens, delighting both in Olivia Welch’s performance as small-town-girl-hoping-to-make-good Heather, and the show’s hooky base premise, which sees teenagers complete increasingly dangerous challenges, issued by a mysterious panel of judges, in order to win a possible $50,000 prize. Reviewing the series, our own Gwen Inhat wrote, “As our player stand-in, Welch is ideal: smart, brave, and determined. We can’t help but cheer when she conquers another challenge.” That being said, it wasn’t all happy times, especially as some of the show’s non-Welch characters, and their attendant romantic drama, were more of a turn-off.

All of which is now, obviously, moot, as the series—which co-starred Mike Faist, Jessica Sula, Ray Nicholson, Camron Jones, and Enrique Murciano—won’t be moving forward, instead consigned to the dustbin of YA drama history. (This, despite a notable push from Amazon that included an Audible audio “novella” featuring the voices of Jones, Nicholson, and Welch. Synergy!) The series was one of several that Amazon green-lit, circa 2018, in an effort to get more young adult-focused content on its servers; The Wilds was recently renewed for a second season on the service, while the new TV adaptation of I Know What You Did Last Summer is set to arrive later this year. There’s also Hot Pink, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, in the works in a similar vein.