FOX has decided to cancel 24: Legacy after just one season according to Deadline.
We have seen the last 24: Legacy but maybe not the last of the 24 franchise. Fox has opted not to renew the latest installment in the 24 franchise for a second season. Meanwhile, the network, producing studio 20th TV and producers Howard Gordon and Brian Grazer are exploring a potential new, more anthological/event series 24 incarnation.
This decision shouldn’t come as a surprise. The writing was on the wall as the show struggled in the viewership department right from the start. Despite being heavily promoted and debuting after the second most-watched Super Bowl ever, it received the lowest post-Super Bowl ratings in 14 years. It was only downhill from there with ratings dropping nearly every episode.
FOX boss Dana Walden said in March that she was “a little sad” about Legacy‘s disappointing ratings performance and that “we’re just going to have to see how our pilots come in, how it continues to perform and weigh all of the information we have in May.”
The Hollywood Reporter reveals that executive producer Howard Gordon flew back from his sabbatical in Spain in an unsuccessful attempt to save 24: Legacy:
Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Gordon flew back to the U.S. in April and early May in an effort to revive 24, with talks said to have included a pitch to save Legacy.
It looks like Fox weighed all of the information and listened to the pitch, but ultimately decided that a second season wasn’t worth pursuing.
It’s extremely rare for a network to cancel a show in the same year that it aired after the Super Bowl – it hasn’t happened since 1995.
Aside from low viewership, the show was poorly reviewed by critics and fans. On review aggregator website Metacritic, Legacy has a 49 Metascore and 4.8 user score compared to a 70 Metascore and 8.7 user score for the previous installment, Live Another Day.
Legacy was also subject to controversy with The New York Times referring to the premiere as “a one-hour Super Bowl ad for Islamophobia.” A few weeks later, the show came under fire again for using footage from the 2013 Westgate shopping mall shooting in Kenya to depict a fictional terrorist attack.
After the finale, producers revealed some of their plans for a second season. John Donovan was to become the President, with Eric Carter working as a CTU agent trying to prevent a large scale threat in a different country. That won’t happen now.
24: Legacy‘s cast included Corey Hawkins, Jimmy Smits, Miranda Otto, Teddy Sears, Dan Bucatinsky, Anna Diop, Ashley Thomas, and Coral Pena. Best of luck to them in their future endeavours.
As Deadline reports, this is not necessarily the end of the series. It’s possible the network will try another reboot with new characters, or get the original cast back together at some point in the future (right now Kiefer Sutherland is busy on Designated Survivor). But it’s definitely the end of this 24: Legacy incarnation.