‘Longmire’ season 4: On patience, and the road still ahead

Longmire -It was on August 28 that the super-sad news about “Longmire’s” cancellation on A&E first came out, and we have been reeling from that ever since. To us, it was the most surprising cancellation of the year, even beating out when Fox axed “Almost Human” or when ABC decided that they did not want to give “Whodunnit” another chapter.

Now, it’s September 18, and there still is no new home for the show. Is that a cause for concern? Hardly. The truth is that these things can take a long time, given that there are so many different factors to consider. A new home has to be convinced, and then they have to figure out where the show would fit in their lineup, what they would want to spend, and so on. The TV business is the intersection of business and creativity, but for a canceled show, the business side typically weighs out.

Still, it is not that strange that we would still be waiting for some news right now. One comparison you could make timeline-wise here is between this show and “Community,” which NBC surprisingly pulled the plug on earlier this year after getting creator Dan Harmon back. It was canceled on May 9, and then picked up by Yahoo on June 30.

For those of you looking at Netflix (a reported suitor for the show), they waited for more than two months after “The Killing” was canceled to decide to ultimately renew it for a short fourth and final season.

Personally, we feel like one of the important things that we can do from a writing perspective is to continue to write and get the word out during that time, and to also stress that so long as talks are happening (which star Lou Diamond Phillips discusses in the tweet below), there is still a reason for optimism. Hats off to all for refusing to allow this show to ride off into the sunset just yet … and of course, we’ll have further updates as they come out.

For now, just be sure to stay tuned, and  also sign up today in the event you want further news on all we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter.

Photo: Warner Horizon

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