We found ourselves a little overwhelmed by Briarpatch, the USA series that dared to ask “How many quirky scenes of Rosario Dawson encountering a giraffe is too many?” The small-town riff on Coen Brothers-style comedy noir often felt like it was trying to be too much to too many in its first season, an approach that wasn’t helped by the show keeping Dawson’s lead character, a political fixer investigating her sister’s death, at too much of a remove for its first several episodes. Still, though: Our own Alex McLevy noted in his review that “when it calms down and manages to settle in to a single story for sufficient lengths of time, Briarpatch is alive with wit and style.”
Unfortunately, it’s looking like the series won’t get more opportunities to learn to take its time, with Coming Soon reporting that the show won’t be returning for a second season. At least, probably not: Creator Andy Greenwald noted in a Twitter post today that “anything’s possible” depending on things like on demand viewership, but that the series is canceled at USA for the foreseeable future. “But if it’s over?” Greenwald added, “What a way to go.”
Calling making the series “the best experience of his life,” Greenwald thanked his cast and crew (and also “the wrestling fans who fell asleep with their TV on in numbers nearly great enough to save us”) for their work on the series. He also reported that he’s just signed a new deal with the show’s production studio, Universal Content Productions, suggesting that there’s very little in the way of bad blood over the show’s cancellation.