Renewals and Cancellations: 'Law & Order,' 'Sex/Life' and a Worthy 'American Horror Story' Twist

As we approach May — the month when networks traditionally make a lot of their decisions about fall schedules — we should probably start to see a lot more renewals and cancellations. For instance, yesterday, NBC renewed six — count ‘em six! — Dick Wolf dramas, which is to say: The entire slate of Law & Order series, as well as the three Chicago shows. That is Law & Order: SVU for its 25th season, Law and Order for its 23rd season, Law and Order: Organized Crime for its fourth season, Chicago Fire for its 12th season, Chicago PD for its 11th season, and Chicago Med for its ninth. I cannot believe the Chicago shows have been on for this long. The six series will join the already renewed La Brea, Magnum P.I., Night Court, and Quantum Leap this fall.

In case you missed it last week, Fox has officially canceled The Resident after six seasons. Matt Czuchry will have to find another job, which shouldn’t be a problem. That guy has been in one long-running TV series after another. In fact, he has already landed his next gig: He will be joining the 12th season of American Horror Story, and for a lot of actors, becoming a Ryan Murphy regular is guaranteed employment for years ago come.

Czuchry will be joining Kim Kardashian in that 12th season, as Murphy tries to reinvigorate the franchise. The 12th season — which will also star Emma Roberts — will be written and showrun by a single writer, Halley Feiffer, and for the first time, will have source material in the form of the upcoming novel Delicate Condition by Danielle Valentine. The book is described as “The Push meets The Silent Patient in a gripping thriller that follows a woman convinced a sinister figure is going to great lengths to make sure her pregnancy never happens―while the men in her life refuse to believe a word she says.” I liked The Push and The Silent Patient! I am, for the first time in a very long time, interested in a season of AHS.

Literally, two days after Sarah Shahi shaded her Netflix series, Sex/Life, and said that Netflix would never hire her again, the streamer canceled the series after two seasons. It was very much of its time, and by that, I mean: Two years ago when horny people were still trapped inside during the pandemic and wanted to see Adam Demos’ penis. Shahi, meanwhile, will be fine: She’s already signed on to an ABC pilot.

Apparently, viewers prefer house porn to that of the soft-core variety because Netflix has renewed Buying Beverly Hills for a second season. It’s a reality series about a real-estate agency whose clients buy new homes in and around the 90210 zip code.

Elsewhere on Netflix, they announced the date for the final episodes of Manifest. They arrive on June 2, which is nearly eight months after the first half of season four aired. However, that date is important, as it’s the “death date” (albeit a year earlier) of the show (the surviving passengers from Flight 818 are supposed to all die on June 2, 2024).

Finally, as those cancellations and renewals come in, I don’t keep up with television ratings as much as I used to (mostly because they are fractured and meaningless), but for the record, TVLine has some predictions about those bubble shows. The gist: Big Sky, Not Dead Yet, Home Economics, and American Auto could go either way; Will Trent and Call Me Kat look good for renewal, and True Lies and The Company You Keep are longshots.