Fox Just Canceled A Critically Acclaimed Series
Fox continues its long history of canceling its most beloved shows by axing a critically adored animated series.
This article is more than 2 years old
Fox has long been known for the quality of its animated shows, but that does not mean those shows stick around for long. Deadline reports that Duncanville, the critically acclaimed cartoon family series, has been canceled after three seasons. While the show has consistently done well with critics, it never managed to grab and hang on to a strong fanbase and Fox is shutting things down. Apparently, there are six unaired episodes that the network has no plans to show on the channel. The remaining episodes of Duncanville episodes will be aired on Hulu as a de facto fourth season.
Duncanville was created by Parks & Recreation and Saturday Night Live star Amy Poehler, former Simpsons showrunner Mike Scully, and former Simpsons writer-producer Julie Scully. The series followed a 15-year-old boy named Duncan Harris who has a vivid imagination and frequently succumbs to flights of fancy in which he is rich, successful, and popular (who hasn’t been there, right?). Duncan himself was voiced by Amy Poehler, who also voiced Duncan’s mother Annie. The rest of the voice cast of Duncanville was stacked with an impressive list of stars, with Modern Family star Ty Burrell playing Duncan’s father Jack and Garfunkel & Oates’ Riki Lindholme playing his surly Wiccan 12-year-old sister Kimberly. Duncanville also featured Severance’s Zach Cherry as Duncan’s best friend Wolf, Betsy Sodaro as another friend named Bex and his grandmother, Rashida Jones as Duncanville’s crush Mia, and rapper Wiz Khalifa school teacher Mr. Mitch.
Duncanville first premiered on Fox in February of 2020 and was quickly renewed for a second season in April, which seemed promising at the time. However, viewership of the series gradually declined over the course of its run on the network; while the pilot episode premiered to a solid 1.52 million viewers, the final aired episode on Fox had declined to less than a third of that. Despite that, the show was a critical favorite, currently maintaining an excellent 91% on Rotten Tomatoes. Fox also airs the iconic animated series The Simpsons, as well as the popular Bob’s Burgers, the long-running Family Guy, and relative newcomers Housebroken and The Great North. While the network may be known for developing animated series, that also means they cancel a lot of animated series.
Duncanville is sadly joining the likes of The Cleveland Show and Bless the Harts in Fox cancelation. However, it is worth noting that Fox has previously canceled animated shows Allen Gregory, High School USA!, Napoleon Dynamite, Axe Cop, Lucas Bros. Moving Co., Bordertown, and Golan the Insatiable after a single season. That Duncanville managed to hang on to three seasons is a pretty impressive feat for the Fox network. There is also always the chance that Duncanville could be saved from oblivion by Hulu; after American Dad! was canceled by Fox, it moved to TBS, where it is still airing. Since Hulu is picking up the remaining episodes, it could be a smooth transition. Streaming platforms have increasingly been adopting canceled fan-favorite network series, so there is still some hope for Duncanville to maybe someday have a fourth season.
