The home team won again this week, as series creator Dana Gould revealed that his supernatural comedy series Stan Against Evil has been booted off the air. The series—which starred John C. McGinley as a curmudgeonly retired sheriff, wielding sarcasm and shotguns against demons and witches threatening his sleepy New Hampshire town—ran for three seasons on IFC.
Gould—probably best known as a stand-up and Simpsons writer, but who will always be Gex to us—broke the news on his podcast, noting that, “Stan Against Evil, I am sad to report, will not be returning for a fourth season.” He maintained mild optimism that the show, which also starred Janet Varney and Nate Mooney, might return in some form or another some day, but seemed happy enough with the 24 episodes that made it onto the air. “This isn’t the official format for my thank you, but I thought everybody did a great job. The show’s on Hulu, you can enjoy it. It ain’t comin’ back anytime soon, but that is, as they say, showbiz.”
We had our own struggles with Stan Against Evil, which frequently battled to find a stable tone between character comedy and the tropes of TV horror. Reviewing its first season—we’ll be honest, we gave up the ghost on this one shortly after—our own Dennis Perkins praised McGinley and Varney for their charismatic performances, but couldn’t make the leap past the show’s “sluggish, perfunctory plotting.”
So, yeah: Stan is dead. Evil’s presumably doing fine.