Y did FX kill Y: The Last Man so quickly?
References to a "really, really steep" decline in ratings are involved in the network's answer
The trajectory of the Y: The Last Man TV show—beginning as a critically acclaimed graphic novel, subjected to a literal decade of development hell as a movie, and then ultimately re-developed as a TV show that was killed off halfway through airing its first season—lands somewhere at the intersection of tragedy and farce. Y had so many hopes and expectations riding on it, to say nothing of being an interesting, if flawed, show in its own right. So, why was FX so ready to kill it?
FX chairman John Landgraf, never one to shy away from a messy topic, got into the show’s cancellation earlier this week, during the network’s big session in front of the Television Critics Association. The answer, per Landgraf, wasn’t just the show’s ratings—although the ratings weren’t, by any account, good—but in how sharp a fall-off they had from the show’s pilot onwards. “One of the key things we assess, and have assessed,” Landgraf told the TCA, “Is the trajectory of a show across a season from the first episode to the last episode.” (Or, presumably, seventh episode, which is how far Y got.)
Re: his own feelings about the show, Landgraf was regretful: “I really love it personally, I really admired all the work that went into it. But its audience decline was really, really steep.”
This was reported by THR, which also noted a more practical financial consideration for why the series wasn’t allowed to complete its run before getting the plug pulled: Cast contracts. Specifically, the production of the series was so delayed (by COVID, re-castings, etc.) that FX had apparently already had to pay to extend the options on the series at least once; they were racing a another such deadline last October when the decision to cancel was made. (Extending the contracts would have reportedly cost the network $3 million; it also would have kept the show’s cast, including Ashley Romans, Ben Schnetzer, and Olivia Thirlby, in limbo without being able to move forward on other projects.)
Series creator Eliza Clark had previously hoped to line up a new home for the series, set in a world where every man on the planet save one abruptly drops dead; those plans fell apart last month, rendering the series extinct.