FX Cancels Another Show

Dana’s journeys through time are coming to an abrupt end. FX has canceled its freshman science fiction series Kindred, which ran exclusively on Hulu, after just one, eight-episode season, sources told The Hollywood Reporter. Neither FX nor Hulu have formally announced the cancellation, which follows news that Mayans M.C. will end with Season 5.

Based on Octavia E. Butler’s 1979 novel, Kindred was developed by Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins and starred Mallori Johnson in the lead role of Dana, a young Black writer who has uprooted her life of familial obligation and relocated to Los Angeles. She soon finds herself being pulled back and forth in time, splitting her time between the present day and at a nineteenth-century plantation, “a place remarkably and intimately linked with Dana and her family,” per the official synopsis.

Debuting on Dec. 13, the series received mostly positive reviews from critics, earning a 70% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes and a critics consensus that reads, “Kindred‘s naturalistic approach may frustrate viewers seeking jump scares, but this psychologically driven horror story casts its own grim spell.” Angelica Jade Bastién wrote for The Guardian that Jacobs-Jenkins “pulled off a rare feat: He’s created a work that interrogates grief with a sociopolitical undercurrent without losing sight of the fact that this is a horror film in the first place,” with Radio Times‘ Emma Simmonds writing that Kindred “is an engaging (and enraging) psychological horror that places him firmly on the map.” Despite the positive reviews, Kindred ultimately failed to create much buzz and only earned a 51% audience score.

Along with Johnson, Kindred also starred Micah Stock as Kevin Franklin, Sheria Irving as Dana’s mother Olivia, Gayle Rankin as Margaret Weylin, Austin Smith as Luke, David Alexander Kaplan as Rufus Weylin, and Sophina Brown. Jacobs-Jenkins executive produced the series with Joe Weisberg, Joel Fields, Darren Aronofsky, and Ari Handel of Protozoa Pictures, Courtney Lee-Mitchell, Jules Jackson, and Ernestine Walker.

The show’s cancellation marks a rare move for FX, which under CEO John Landgraf takes a slow and methodical approach to development and tends to not cancel a series after just a single season. It is believed that Jacobs-Jenkins will shop the drama from FX Productions, with THR reporting that “FX is expected to support Jacobs-Jenkins should he indeed want to shop the show.”