‘The Red Line’ Canceled After 1 Season by CBS

It’s been announced that The Red Line has been canceled by CBS after only one season.

According to Deadline, the series was only meant to be a limited-run anyway, but it still had so-so ratings and seemed to struggle in finding an audience.

The Red Line was co-produced by Greg Berlanti and Ava Duvernay, and followed three different Chicago families whose lives all intersected because of a tragedy. The series also placed a heavy emphasis on race relations, racial bias, and racial profiling.

The series starred Noah Wyle, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Noel Fisher, Howard Charles, Aliyah Royale, Michael Patrick Thornton, Vinny Chhibber and Elizabeth Laidlaw.

[The show] did not get picked up for a second season, so it will exist as an elegant novel,” Sunil Nayar, co-showrunner of The Red Line, said at the ATX Television Festival.

It seems that most fans never expected the series to go any further than one season anyway, based on comments found on social media.

“Well…..it was a miniseries so I can’t say that I’m shocked or surprised because I’m not,” one fan tweeted. “(I only use the term ‘limited series’ if the series has a chance of coming back for a 2nd regular series season).”

I loved it. It was real. But I always saw ‘limited series’ as the marketing,” another commented. “Thank you to the cast and to [Ava DuVernay] for making relevant, thought provoking ‘entertainment.’ “

In April of this year, DuVernay spoke with Rolling Stone about the series, revealing how it was that she came to be involved with it.

“Warner Bros. said they had a piece they thought was up my alley in terms of dealing with narratives woven around criminal justice. I read the script to the first episode and thought it was really beautifully done,” she told the outlet. “It had a story that touched points across race, gender and sexual identity. I wanted to support it, so I came on board with [co-executive producer] Greg Berlanti to help get it on air.

Regarding her role as an executive producer, DuVernay said, “We were there as a sounding board for the creators. I brought in several L.A.-based families of police shootings to the writer’s room, so that the writers were able to look someone in the face who’s lost a loved one from police aggression and not be dealing with it out of context or in the abstract.

“I brought in Melina Abdullah as well, a professor at Cal State L.A. and the leader of Black Lives Matter in Los Angeles, to make sure they had a resource as they were writing the script,” she added.

CBS All Access subscribers can watch the entire series now on the streaming service.