Renewals and Cancellations: 'Étoile,' 'Cleaning Lady,' 'Laid,' and 'Hacks'

After a flurry of renewals and cancellations over the first half of May, things have slowed considerably since upfronts. But there have been a few moves, so let me catch you up on the last three weeks.

The two big ones that everyone probably already knows about are the renewals of Yellowjackets (by Paramount+/Showtime) for season four, and Hacks by HBO Max for season five. The renewals are the good news. The bad news is that neither was announced as a final season, and both need to start wrapping up. Hacks is still good, but well-worn, while Yellowjackets is falling apart.

In late May, Apple TV+ also renewed Women in Blue, which is based on the true story of four women who formed the first all-women police force in 1971 Mexico City. That same week, Prime Video finally cut loose Wheel of Time, a very expensive series that didn’t find a large enough audience to sustain its budget.

More recently, FX picked up Welcome to Wrexham for a fifth season, as it attempts its fourth promotion in as many years—this time to the Premier League, the top-tier league in British football. The currently ongoing fourth season remains somehow as crowd-pleasing as ever, and Humphrey Ker is still the best reason to watch.

Paramount+/Showtime also picked up The Chi for an eighth season after a strong season seven premiere. The same network picked up a fifth season of Couples Therapy, which documents real-life therapy sessions. That series has actually continued to grow in the ratings.

I never got around to Peacock’s Laid despite a lot of affection for Stephanie Hsu. I’m not the only one—the series was canceled after one season. They should run more series concurrently with Poker Face, since that’s the only time a lot of people subscribe.

For what it’s worth, the last remaining series from the old The CW, All American, was picked up for an eighth and final season.

Finally, over the weekend, there were three cancellations. Fox put the kibosh on Cleaning Lady after three seasons, and Alert, and is expected to pull the plug on the animated series The Great North.

Meanwhile, despite picking it up for two seasons, the ratings for Amy Sherman-Palladino’s Étoile were apparently so bad that it was canceled after only one. It’s Sherman-Palladino’s second whiff with a ballet series, following the cancellation of Bunheads after only one season, as well. Prime Video did, however, pick up a third season of its YA series Maxton Hall - The World Between Us six months before the second season premiere. It’s a German series set at an English boarding school that I had never heard of.