Scavengers Reign has been killed off on Max

Bad news today for fans of inventive, emotionally mature science fiction (in which incredibly awful things are always happening to the human body): Variety reports that Max has canceled Scavengers Reign after just a single season on the streamer. The series, created by Joseph Bennett and Charles Huettner, focused on the crew of a spaceship that crash lands on an alien planet teaming with life that would just love to get to know you, usually by infecting, symbiotically attaching to, or otherwise invasively interacting with human biology.

Scavengers Reign was a hit with critics, who praised both its animation, and its willingness to explore big-idea sci-fi and human weakness within the same stories. The series didn’t make a huge viewership impact, though, possibly because nothing we just described sounds like the kind of thing Max is really in the business of marketing these days. (Originally conceived as an Adult Swim program, Scavengers Reign was more fully developed for Max’s predecessor, the relatively more daring and inventive HBO Max.)

There is a small silver lining to the news, though: Before it killed the show, Max had already licensed the series out to Netflix, where its first season will now re-debut on May 31, potentially exposing it to a new (and much larger) audience. Variety also quotes “sources” that say Netflix is considering reviving the show for itself for a second season, although that’s obviously going to depend on what sort of reception it gets from viewers after it arrives on the service. For now, though, the series—which starred Sunita Mani, Wunmi Mosaku, Alia Shawkat, Bob Stephenson, and Ted Travelstead—is officially stranded.