Y did FX kill Y: The Last Man so quickly?
References to a "really, really steep" decline in ratings are involved in the network's answer
Aux News Y: The Last Man
The trajectory of the Y: The Last Man TV show—beginning as a critically acclaimed graphic novel, subjected to a literal decade of development hell as a movie, and then ultimately re-developed as a TV show that was killed off halfway through airing its first season—lands somewhere at the intersection of tragedy and farce. Y had so many hopes and expectations riding on it, to say nothing of being an interesting, if flawed, show in its own right. So, why was FX so ready to kill it?
FX chairman John Landgraf, never one to shy away from a messy topic, got into the show’s cancellation earlier this week, during the network’s big session in front of the Television Critics Association. The answer, per Landgraf, wasn’t just the show’s ratings—although the ratings weren’t, by any account, good—but in how sharp a fall-off they had from the show’s pilot onwards. “One of the key things we assess, and have assessed,” Landgraf told the TCA, “Is the trajectory of a show across a season from the first episode to the last episode.” (Or, presumably, seventh episode, which is how far Y got.)
Re: his own feelings about the show, Landgraf was regretful: “I really love it personally, I really admired all the work that went into it. But its audience decline was really, really steep.”
This was reported by THR, which also noted a more practical financial consideration for why the series wasn’t allowed to complete its run before getting the plug pulled: Cast contracts. Specifically, the production of the series was so delayed (by COVID, re-castings, etc.) that FX had apparently already had to pay to extend the options on the series at least once; they were racing a another such deadline last October when the decision to cancel was made. (Extending the contracts would have reportedly cost the network $3 million; it also would have kept the show’s cast, including Ashley Romans, Ben Schnetzer, and Olivia Thirlby, in limbo without being able to move forward on other projects.)
Series creator Eliza Clark had previously hoped to line up a new home for the series, set in a world where every man on the planet save one abruptly drops dead; those plans fell apart last month, rendering the series extinct.
112 Comments
Spending an entire episode following the story of Evil Cult Leader lady sapped my interest for the show. Especially after I’d heard it had already been canceled.
ditto
I remember reading that the show was dead from the day it aired, in that the network never had plans on renewing it – I think going back to it’s murkiness of getting developed and picked up. There was hardly any promotion for it, if any, before or during its run.
I watched it, and it had a lot of potential as yet another dystopian show.
It did feel a bit like a victim of peak television, in that it mostly had potential to grow into something interesting than being great from the jump. But shows don’t really get room to breathe anymore, particularly expensive ones, and if you don’t arrive fully formed, that’s it for you.
That feels like they screwed up, then. If they were never planning to renew it, then they should have reshot the season finale so it could be a series finale.
I saw ads for it (though, I was a fan of the comic so I was *looking* for ads) but they didn’t properly sell the show.
That :30 spot dances around the “hook” of the show, the exact specifics of the pandemic: All the men suddenly died, except for one. By not telling people why THIS show was different, it just comes across as another apocalypse/wasteland/end of days show with nothing unique or memorable going for it. To me, that’s the biggest reason it failed.
The second reason is because there’s too many other better (more effectively marketed) options out there. I still haven’t watched Y because my wife had no interest and my solo TV time went to other shows.
It was so dour and dreary and joyless, it’s no wonder hardly anybody stuck around. Who needs more of that?
I’m also not sure people where in the mood right now for a sci-fi epic about a plague upending life as we know it in their escapism.
And yet, HBO Max’s Station Eleven has great reviews and is much closer to the ACTUAL pandemic in terms of a flu-like virus causing everyone to go into isolation (before wiping out humanity), rather than a mysterious instantaneous event killing all cis men.I think the difference between the two shows is that Y just wasn’t very good or fun to watch. The main characters were frustrating in their incompetence, or were just plain annoying, and a lot of episodes just seemed to be spinning wheels.
I dunno – I bailed on Y, but I watched Station Eleven on the edge of my seat from start to finish. They couldn’t be more different, even though they’re both about pandemics.
Which was such a dumb choice because that’s not at all what the comic is like. Yea it has dark undertones but it’s also funny and never gets too bogged down in the dark implications of the premise.
You’re right, they should have pitched this show to AMC.
“Okay so what if walking dead, but the zombies are all men?”
I blame the timing. Do we really need a show right now about a massive segment of the population dying off in the midst of an actual plague that has killed millions? Though it got good reviews, even Station Eleven, I thought was rather crass in its timing, and I noped out of t part way through. I just don’t need this kind of entertainment right now.
See, I bailed after Ep. 3, not because of the “plague” thing — and “all men drop dead” is different enough from COVID to not bother me — but when it was clearly about to be about “will the Trumpies take over the US government”.
yeeep. The politicians story line was by far my least favorite.
Yes. If this had been a more straightforward adaptation focused on Yorick, 335, and Dr. Mann, with Hero/Sam side plots to explore the world more and with hardly any political stuff and no Daughters Of The Amazon (or a much better written version), then this could have worked.
I dropped the comic for that very reason, having no interest in even trying the adaptation. While I appreciate the effort in trying to take the narrative into a more indepth approach instead of the harem route it very well could have been, it relies so heavily on modern politics that it almost feels like the interesting premise was only there so it can be a political commentary. I enjoy fictional politics as much as the next guy, it really sells the world, but Y really decided to dismiss any creativity and just rant about politics. And if you are here for that, it doesn’t even have anything interesting to say. I’m really not sure who this story is for, just seems like am outlet for the creator to project his childish political perception unchallenged.
Yep, this. When it became obvious (third episode or so) that it was going to turn into a right vs left political show, I completely lost interest. I just wanted a bleak sci-fi post-apocalypse show, I didn’t want a reflection of the daily hell around us. Yes, I am tired of the pandemic, but I’m far, far more exhausted by politics here in the US.
when it was clearly about to be about “will the Trumpies take over the US government”.
Yeah, because then it’s not speculative fiction anymore.
Eh, I’d say the idea that trumpies could take over without white men is too ridiculous even for fiction.
I meant because we’ve seen it happen. But I’m sure there are plenty of female populist narcissists to go around too.
Oh honey
The political story line was MUCH less important to the comics, and it feels obvious that with a road trip A plot they needed a B plot that kept using the same sets in every episode.
Didn’t the comic come close to that or have a similar story?
Asking for someone who didn’t even start the series, for some of the reasons previously mentioned.
Perhaps particularly relevant is that the deaths in ‘Y’ are so sudden that nobody got a chance to say goodbye to the loved ones they lost. And that’s been part of the horror of COVID for so many people.
I think it just has more to do with the fact that people didn’t like it. Every time I looked into the discussion section for an episode recap (or looked at the ongoing thread for it on a message board I go to) there weren’t many comments and over half of those were negative. The mention of audience drop-off kinda shows this – it’s not that people were turned off by the premise so much as they were turned off by the show itself.
Yeah, I think Station Eleven tends to disprove that Y was harmed by the pandemic. I think it was harmed by failing to be a good adaption. The core of the comic was the dynamic between the three main characters, one of whom they delayed introducing (and never had her do her great “I’m the father!” introduction), and they constantly made other things the focus instead. The book would tell smaller stories but you have to establish that core first.
And then the tone was all off (the book gets dark but it’s mixed with humor), they made 355 a barely-functioning incompetent that no one should be following anywhere, etc. Example: in the book she gets her head injury because Yorick falls out of a train while they’re getting mugged, and she and Allison have to jump out after him. In the show, she passes out and drives them into a tree.
In the show, she passes out and drives them into a tree.Women drivers, am I right??I’ll show myself out…
I was a fan of the comic who didn’t watch the series mainly because I didn’t want to spend my fantasy time in a plague-ridden hell. However, if they made badass 355 an incompetent dolt, I’m glad I never bothered with it.
That’s how I felt about it. I wasn’t put off with the pandemic plotline, I just wasn’t impressed with the plot and the acting.
Yeah, I am also in the “because it wasn’t good” camp.I wanted to like it, I slogged through the end, but it was a chore. I am not surprised a lot of others just ditched it instead.Indeed, apparently it was the same deal with the live action Cowboy Bebop. People who liked it thought it might not have gotten a fair chance. But when a lot more people try it than finish it, that is people voting with their eyeballs.And if you can’t keep an audience, why would anyone give you more money? There are too many other possible projects out there which have not already flopped.
Deeply jealous of your user name
That’s how I felt about it. I wasn’t put off with the pandemic plotline, I just wasn’t impressed with the plot and the acting.
My wife started watching it, and after a couple episodes I noticed they were starting to backlog in the DVR. Asked if she was watching them, her reply was “eh” and then deleting the recording and cancelling the series.Couldn’t really give an answer as to what specifically turned her off, just that the show wasn’t any fun to watch.
That’s how I felt too…can’t say exactly why, but I started watching it and the idea of going back to it feels like a chore.
I don’t think it is the only reason – as others pointed to other flaws – but yeah, that was kind of it for me too. I really don’t need another “virus kills mankind” storyline at the moment.
Like I know its not the same, but still…
Also skipped the new The Stand series because of it.
I blame the timing too. Did we really need a show right now about a massive segment of the population dying off in the aftermath of Thanos wiping out half of all life on the planet? Just seemed crass.
I don’t know. I mean, a large percentage (and I do mean a LARGE percentage) of Americans spent a significant amount of time first denying the very existence of Covid, then later denying the serious ramifications of the virus. I don’t see a viral show during a viral pandemic being the root cause of viewer decline.
…a large percentage (and I do mean a LARGE percentage) of Americans spent a significant amount of time first denying the very existence of Covid…You mean they doubted the legitimancy of a virus so deadly that it was running rampant across the world for months before anyone knew it existed? You mean they doubted the existence of a virus so devastating that the vast majority of those infected needed to be tested in order to know if they had it? You mean they doubted the credibility of a government which has consistently oversold the danger of every previous pandemic? You may not remember the attempted fear-mongering around Sars of MERS, but others do….then later denying the serious ramifications of the virus.You mean they realized that the criteria being used by governments to classify a death as a covid death were entirely unprecedented? You mean they remembered the dire covid death toll predictions widely publicized by major media to support the government’s claims that harsh lockdown measures were essential, then noticed that those predictions (even the lower end of the death toll estimates based upon the presumption that those harsh lockdown measures were implemented) massively overestimated covid mortality? You mean they noticed that the harsh lockdown measures imposed by governments utterly failed to have any noticeable impact on covid’s spread, leading them to question the utility of those harsh lockdown measures? You mean that, once it became patently obvious that covid would never be driven into extinction, they began to oppose governmental policies whose sole justification was government’s attempt to achieve the unattainable goal of eradicating covid?Yeah, those people are the nutjobs. Not the ones who continued, and still continue, to cling to the fantasy of a covid-free world. I don’t see a viral show during a viral pandemic being the root cause of viewer decline.The show wasn’t woke enough for the woke and it wasn’t realistic enough for the unwoke. It was doomed to find a diminishing audience.
i wish we got another season of fox’s the last man on earth.that would have been good watching through all this.
Station Eleven was PERFECT in its timing, because it’s ultimately about how you survive and process this sort of trauma. Y, on the other hand, was basically a thriller that doesn’t bring much thoughtfulness to the table, and that’s why I bailed on it.People will still be rewatching Station Eleven many years from now. For my money, it’s an essentially perfect show, up there with other greats of the form like Watchmen. I hope you’re able to go back and enjoy it at some point!
I will give it another try in the future. I just couldn’t get past the first episode when I tried. It was all too real.
Yeah. When the show did the Sliding Doors version of the insurrection, I realized that I didn’t need that particular content.
Crass timing? More like unfortunate timing. Shows are greenlit and thrown into production far ahead of time. Decisions from 2018 and 2019 only look poorly/crassly timed after the fact. The toothpaste was already out of the tube by the time the pandemic hit. I too am not ready to hop on any new plague shows but Station 11 had a lot of grace and beauty from The Leftovers to make it something more than just pandemic porn. Y just seemed boring.
Could have started the series years ago when The Walking Dead was at its all-time high. We would have had an interesting viewing battle between those two shows.I read the whole graphic novel series of Y: The Last Man and I loved the hell out of it. The story deserved better. So did The Walking Dead shows with increasingly lazy writings and plotting.
See, I’ve started watching Station Eleven and the differences between those two are genuinely stunning. Y had a problem in that the leads were, well, unlikeable as fuck, whereas Station Eleven has got some genuinely fantastic characters to watch. Hell, even child-Kirsten is compelling. Yes, both are about plagues, yes, both have copious death – but Station 11? It has a strong thread of hope. At least, that’s what I’m getting from it. Yes, the world has ended – but look, here’s beauty, here’s imagination, here’s chaos and here’s death and here’s rebirth. Life goes on. Y just didn’t have that. Not to mention that, visually, Station Eleven has moments of pure beauty that we never got to see in Y. Timing, well, yeah, timing did kind of suck but here’s the deal: this sort of programming would never have had a suitable time to come out. We saw it here in the UK back in the 1970s with Survivors (another show dealing with a world-ending plague) or Threads (do yourself a favour: do not watch this alone) in the 1980s. There isn’t really ever a time for apocalypse television but sometimes it has to be shown. What’s important is the message that the show carries. Y didn’t have any message. Seriously, it didn’t (and I watched all of it, rolling my eyes so hard at Yorick that I wanted to leap through my laptop and end the human male-line once and for fucking all). I know there won’t be a second series of Station Eleven. I know how the book ends. I know what happens and I’m fine with that. Like I said: it’s about hope, not death.
I agree the timing of Station Eleven was unfortunate – although it’s worth being aware it was entirely coincidental; they’d already filmed half the series when the pandemic hit in 2020. This becomes pretty clear in the show too – it’s very clearly made by people who’ve never been in a real pandemic! I loved the show personally, but also didn’t think the pandemic elements were very realistic (which the book author has also been very clear to point out – she didn’t focus on a medically plausible scenario, only a “what if” situation).
It only seems a bit weird for a show to be cancelled mid-season because we’re used to streaming services at least running the full season. Network shows are known for doing that kind of stuff – axing a show after a pilot episode or several episodes in, kicking the show to a “death slot”, and so forth.
Yeah, I was randomly reminded of an ABC show from 1999, Wasteland, that I had vague teenage memories of. It wasn’t good (it’s all on youtube) but WAS heavily promoted, especially as being right on the cusp of the millennium zeitgeist, and from Kevin Williamson who was still a pretty hot name. After all that promo, ABC axed it after three episodes (despite 12 being made). A year later Showtime apparently aired it all, but, I had almost forgotten how network TV was (and I guess to some degree still is) SO quick to cancel shows that didn’t immediately find an audience, even if they had already paid for a dozen more episodes that would just be shelved, etc. Around that time, when I started to really pay attention to how TV worked, or seemed to, it was incredibly common.
Broadcast networks are very reluctant to pull a show from the schedule now. It’s mostly an economic thing. There’s no guarantee that whatever show they use to replace the one they just canceled will do any better in the ratings than the original show. Take a show like Ordinary Joe on NBC. It was only getting 1,5 million viewers, but NBC let it air all 13 episodes that were made. If the show was on five years ago, NBC would have canceled it after six or seven episodes. I believe that the last broadcast show to get pulled off the air was the Kal Penn comedy Sunnyside which was taken off the air after four episodes in October 2019. NBC had the final season of the Will & Grace revival waiting in the wings so they had something to replace it with.
Great point–they definitely have changed their model a lot in the past twenty years now that they get a fraction of the viewer ratings they used to get.
ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX all suck, as their only purpose is to pump out mediocre material simply to attract enough eyeballs for Bounty and State Farm commercials. Their entire advertising model is aging into oblivion as older viewing habits (and viewers! LOL) die.
Yep, a very low-rated series being given a chance to find an audience was rare enough to be newsworthy when it happened. Cheers is one of the best-known examples. I’m having a hard time thinking of others.
Seinfeld, Crazy ex Girlfriend
Seinfeld is another.(New thought)There were a bunch of NBC shows in the 80s that survived because the network was dead last and didn’t have anything to replace them with.
I think what they’ll do now is just reshoot stuff before ever releasing it, rather than putting out a bad season then hoping to do better the next one. The original Game of Thrones pilot episode apparently was so bad that they reshot the entire thing, including recasting some of the actors/actresses (such as the actress playing Catalyn Stark).
Hill Street Blues had very low ratings for a couple seasons. But the network had faith in the show, held on, and it became a rating juggernaut in later seasons. It was successful enough that the network gave the creator carte blanche for his next cop show – Cop Rock.
Hill Street Blues another in that same era. Ditto Seinfeld Chronicles which went on to become something really big … on the tip of my tongue … : )Networks used to move a show’s time slot around a bit before deciding to keep or cancel. I don’t think that happens as much anymore.
The Office is another great example. If I recall correctly it was the lowest rated first season ever to be picked up for a second season.
Swamp Thing was canceled after only one episode on DC Universe though the writing was on the wall when they cut the episode order before it aired. However, there was some extenuating circumstances with it due to budget and tax credits so it wasn’t viewer related.
Yeah and the way steaming contracts work it’s actually not super expensive to keep actors around for a second season apparently. Y: The Last Man got cancelled like a good old fashion network TV show
I’m still remembering Viva Laughlin. These folks cancelled Hugh Jackman after one episode.Streaming has spoiled the younger generations. Now if you’ll pardon me I’m going to sit in my rocking chair and stare at my neighbors through the window.
As someone who enjoyed the comic on a re-read despite some glaring flaws I can say the show didn’t get the vibe right at all. It was dour, slow, trauma obsessed, and unpleasant. The comic works because it maintains the pacing and attitude of it’s ADD fuckup protagonist. It’s a fast paced, road trip action comic with a monkey. There are good emotional beats in it too, but that’s not the main drive.Preacher similarly took a comic that lived on it’s pacing and just drenched it in molasses.
shame, it was painful sometimes but because it felt so real how quickly the State fell
I get that characters have arcs but the two leads were so awful and unrealistic that I just couldn’t after a couple of eps
The answer, per Landgraf, wasn’t just the show’s ratings—although the ratings weren’t, by any account, good—but in how sharp a fall-off they had from the show’s pilot onwards.it took a few episodes for me to get into it and i had to push whereas many wouldn’t. i enjoyed the show as it went on. i especially loved the dynamic between 355 and dr. mann, who is the funny of the show and unfortunately doesn’t come until later on in the season. it didn’t help that yorrick was the lead of the show and so incredibly annoying; a failed himbo. i’m all hear for a show that has missi pyle playing a cult leader.
I don’t no about everybody else but I will miss seeing the sexy Ben Schnetzer shirtless running for his life. And I love Diane Lane & Ashley Tamblyn.
There’s so much TV watch now, I’m actually relieved when a show gets cancelled.
I am the target audience of this show: a slow/methodically paced show about a plague killing off most of humankind and leaving the world a decaying wasteland is absolutely my jam, even during *waves hands* all this. But man, this show was boring as hell. If they couldn’t make this appeal to me, someone who still watches and enjoys TWD and has rewatched The Road four times since January 2020, then they definitely messed up somewhere.
Good GOD—why have you rewatched The Road four times?? Can I call someone for you?
Four times since the pandemic started. Overall I’ve seen it roughly two dozen times & read the book about a dozen more. To me, it’s kinda the perfect story.
I saw it once, ages ago, and I’m still thinking about those doomed naked people in the basement being kept as a food source. Gahhh.
Ugh, I worry that I’m too fucked-up-practical for these dystopian stories to ever work for me. There is zero utility to keeping people alive to eat in a starvation situation; you should kill them immediately and preserve the meat by smoking or salting.
I had the same issue with Snowpiercer; why would you keep the back of the train full of useless people sitting around? Either use them as labour or ditch them.
(To be clear, I’m a full softie socialist, I just think that these fictional “evil” characters are usually cartoonishly evil for no reason other than dramatic effect, when they could be even more evil for practical reasons).
Micharl K Williams left naked on the side of the road is pretty bleak to me
That’s seriously hardcore. As a child of the ‘80s, fascinated/horrified by post-nuclear apocalyptic scenarios, doomsday stuff has always fascinated me. I’ve seen plenty: Defcon 4, Mad Max, all thos… and The Road was too much for me. I watched it once, and that was enough!
Yeah, I don’t know why it’s so appealing to me. I think it’s the idea of a largely quiet, empty world where what does remain is exceedingly horrible and dangerous, yet still allows for someone like the Man to exist as a better, kinder person than most people who live in the current world. Yeah, he made some possibly questionable decisions, but I never doubt his motivation is to do right by the Boy. And I choose to believe that the ending is optimistic & the the family that arrives after the Man dies really does intend to be good to him. So it tends to make me feel hopeful about the future, which is a weird takeaway I’ll admit, but there it is.
Have you ever read the novel? It’s also suitably bleak, down to the way the prose is laid out on the page.
Oh yeah, about a dozen times. I read the book 2 or 3 times before the movie came out. I was skeptical that they’d be permitted by Hollywood to translate the novel accurately to the screen, but I was pleasantly surprised. I think it helped that the novel was short enough to not need a lot cut from it, but I can’t believe that they got away with putting almost everything from the book into the movie.
Lol, I think you’re the only person who was “pleasantly surprised” by that movie!! Cheers!
You’re a sick man
The lack of punctuation in this comment makes it perfect for Cormac McCarthy. It just needs to continue for 2 more sentences, but as one sentence.
Yeah, that was never gonna be the show.The comic was always about politics, specifically gender politics. It’s reverse Children of Men.
I was one of the apparently large number of people who watched an episode and a half and then quit. As others have said, it was striking how patently unfunny it had been made to be, coming off a graphic novel series that (whatever you feel about Vaughan’s libertarian/hawkish politics) was always funny.
This was a show I really, really wanted to like and had followed its development for years after reading the comics in the early-mid 2000s.But yeah this one just didn’t work for me at all. The cast are all great and I’ve largely enjoyed them all in other things but it was a show which just wasn’t the sum of its parts .It’s a huge shame but maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.Brian K Vaughn had a great run through that period though, including the excellent Ex Machina and even the stuff he did at Marvel like his brief Ultimate X-men run
Good business sense?
When it first got canceled, the reason didn’t make a lot of sense. FX leaked the story about canceling it because they didn’t want to keep the cast under contract so they could be free to find other jobs. It seemed like a way for FX to look good by doing the cast a favor when in actuality they fired them. Imagine if your company fired you by telling you that they did it so you were free to find another job. Even if FX did pick up their contracts, it wouldn’t necessarily prevent the cast from finding other work. The new acting job would be in “second position” to Y. If Y was picked up, then the new show or movie would recast that role. If Y was canceled, then the actor would have the new role. FX knew when the deadline to pick up the actors’ contracts was, saw the viewership data, knew that they were going to cancel it and decided to save $3M by releasing the cast.
Dissed in the Malibu.
“A really, really, really, ridiculously steep drop off in ratings.”
The majority of characters in that show were badly written and acted like idiots The agent and her backstory were the only things redeeming about it.
One of the key things we assess, and have assessed
I was into it, but not enough to keep watching after the hammer came down. It was really a downer of a show. Like TWD, but without even the fun of the occasional zombie, just people being shitty to one another.
So I’m the only person here who actually liked the show? All right.
we are dozens, I’ve heard…
Its run reminds me of Wayward Pines, another oddball dystopian show doomed by its prolonged preproduction that led the cast contracts to expire & it would have been too expensive to extend/ renegotiate them. Wayward Pines tried to get around it by doing a time jump & just hiring a new cast! That however was not a good idea & didn’t work
I noped out of Wayward Pines once they revealed the extremely stupid backstory. The initial premise hooked me but the big reveal of what was actually going on was just so deeply dumb I couldn’t keep watching it.
More importantly, Y Kant Tori Read?
ratings matter less and less but this show was driving no discussion or discourse. literally noone was talking about it, even to complain.
cause it was bad
I blame the timing. Did we really need a show right now about a massive segment of the population dying off in the aftermath of Thanos wiping out half the population? Just seemed crass.
It had promise, but just for the life of me could not get into or care about anything that was going on in the Pentagon, where seemingly all the government types were content to chug along with partisan politics as usual.
I had thought they would get more into the nuances of “shit, due to stereotypes and glass ceilings and the such 90% of the people who know how to do “this” are now dead” and less into continuing to bitch and moan about Republican and Democrat talking points.
My theory is that someone at FX finally got around to reading the last issue of the comic and was like “Oh, fuck this!”
Right?Everyone out here praising the comic and I’m like “did y’all read it all the way to the end?”
I will never forgive them killing off 355. Who wanted that? What was that in service of? Nobody said the series had to end with rainbows and puppies and happily ever after. But that ending was bizarre, soul-crushing and tonally off in a way that made it the storytelling equivalent of Gonzo’s trumpet playing the last note of the Muppet Show theme.
The show was badly written and the main character wasn’t in any way likeable.
It just wasn’t very good, unfortunately.
the main issue I had with it was that while it took out all the toxic elements from the comic, it didn’t put anything interesting back in. for as problematic as the comic was, it was a bizarre trainwreck, the show was just a slow-burn collapse. the fact they never had the government get attacked by a mob of republican house rep widows was a travesty.
also, while its attempts at dealing with some of the gender issues of the original were appreciated, the core of the story was still gender essentialism.
As every other comment says, FX killed Y because I did not like it, and here are the reasons:
Flawed series with low ratings = cancelation.Where’s the controversy?
The comic books were fun.
This wasn’t.
And it felt like that was a choice somebody made.
*selects “not a very good television program” from dropdown*
“(Or, presumably, seventh episode, which is how far Y got.)“Ten. All ten episodes aired, thanks.