NEXT season 2: Why was it canceled at Fox prior to finale airing?

If you find yourself wanting a NEXT season 2 following the big finale event on Fox tonight, we come bearing some bad news. Earlier this year, the John Slattery series found itself unceremoniously canceled after only a handful of airings. It felt almost premature, but when you look at the reasoning behind the move, the picture starts to become clearer.

Let’s start things off with this: We don’t think that Fox was ever altogether confident that they were bringing NEXT back on the air. Just consider how long they delayed its premiere in the first place. This show was planned at first to be a part of the 2019-20 TV season ending in May, but eventually they decided it would make a suitable pandemic-related replacement for some of their 2020-21 shows. It never got a flurry of production, and the ratings were far from spectacular. To date, NEXT has averaged a 0.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic and just over 1.2 million viewers. For a scripted show on Fox, those numbers are woeful. They’d potentially be passable on The CW, but not a network with this set of expectations. DVR / streaming performance are clearly not enough to save it.

We’re sure that another consideration that Fox looked at was the viability of shooting. During this health crisis, it is far more expensive to shoot scripted content given the costs of testing, PPE gear, and other measures designed to keep everyone safe. There are fewer cost-related gambles networks are wanting to take. We think NEXT would have liked been canceled even before the pandemic, but that just seals the deal further.

Ultimately, we do still appreciate the effort of the entire cast and crew here to deliver something in NEXT that stood out in a sea of network-TV sameness. It just couldn’t find an audience, and we have a hard time imagining it finding a new home elsewhere.

Are you sad that there won’t be a NEXT season 2 on Fox in the future?

Be sure to share right now in the attached comments! Also, remember to come back around to get some more updates all about the series. (Photo: Fox.)