Peacock Cancels Series With 91% Rotten Tomatoes Rating After One Season

Even a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score wasn’t enough to save one hit horror show from the chopping block. Hysteria!, the Satanic Panic series starring horror icon Bruce Campbell and Modern Family alum Julie Bowen, has been canceled at Peacock after just a single season. The cancellation, confirmed by Variety Tuesday, comes just four months after Hysteria! dropped its first and only season at the NBCUniversal stream in October 2024.

Created by Matthew Scott Kane, Hysteria! was set in 1989 during the height of the Satanic Panic. When a local teenager is killed, things spiral out of control. Per the official synopsis: “When a beloved varsity quarterback disappears during the ‘Satanic Panic’ of the late 1980s, a struggling high school heavy metal band of outcasts realize they can capitalize on the town’s sudden interest in the occult by building a reputation as a Satanic metal band, until a bizarre series of murders, kidnappings, and reported ‘supernatural activity’ triggers a leather-studded witch hunt that leads directly back to them.”

Along with Campbell and Bowen, the eight-episode debut season also starred Anna Camp, Emjay Anthony, Chiara Aurelia, Kezii Curtis and Nikki Hahn. Bruce Campbell, Garret Dillahunt, Nolan North, Elijah Richardson, Milly Shapiro, Allison Scagliotti, and Jessica Treska in recurring roles.

The series had been a relative hit, at least in terms of critic approval. Hysteria!’s debut season managed to score a 91% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics dubbing the show “a devil of a good time” and “a bit of a tonal tightrope, with thriller and dramedy splashes becoming fuel to the fire of the horror influences.” A critics consensus for the comedy horror-thriller on the site reads, “freaky in both scares and style, Hysteria! will be a raucous good time for viewers who like their horror programming to have a sense of humor.”

The series held a slightly lower audience score at 87%, which was still a fresh rating.

But despite those high ratings, the series never cracked the weekly Nielsen Top 10 streaming charts. Peacock also doesn’t release viewership data for its shows, so it’s unclear if Hysteria! failed to bring in an audience worthy of a renewal.

Peacock’s decision to cancel Hysteria! follows the January cancellation of another Peacock October 2024 horror release, Teacup. The horror drama, set on an isolated ranch in rural Georgia where a group of people were forced to face a mysterious threat together, held a 77% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.