‘Houdini & Doyle’ canceled by Fox; season 2 goes up in smoke

While the writing on the wall was pretty clear for Fox’s “Houdini & Doyle” following its run earlier this summer, it is now official: The show looks to be putting on a permanent disappearing act.

After one season with extremely low ratings and a poor critical reception, the show is canceled, and we don’t exactly think that the odds of it turning up anywhere else on American TV are particularly high.

In the end, it was easy to see what the idea for the show was appealing, given that there is a vast interest in the era, and thanks to series like “Sherlock,” a huge interest in all things Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Summer is the time to air these sort of big-risk shows, and this one just didn’t pay off. It’s really as simple as that. Hopefully, the poor performance of “Houdini & Doyle” does not prohibit Fox from giving other interesting ideas a chance in the summer. That is one of the big things we’re worried about this summer following the failures of this show and others such as “BrainDead” and “American Gothic”: Viewers just aren’t responding to new concepts on network TV, and networks have to think of some interesting ways to combat the popularity of streaming dramas. A show like “Stranger Things” has proven that you can debut in the summer out of nowhere and be a success, so everyone from Fox to CBS needs to figure out how to bottle a little bit of that magic for themselves.

If there is anything more to report on when it comes to this show, rest assured that we’ll have it for you here.

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