Fox is beginning to thin its herd.
The independent broadcast network on Friday made the decision to cancel rookie drama Deputy. The Western procedural from creator Will Beall was produced by Entertainment One, with Fox as a co-producer.
The series launched in January to lackluster reviews and, after completing its 13-episode run, has a 40 percent and 57 percent rating among critics and viewers on aggregation site RottenTomatoes.com.
Sources say the decision to cancel the series a week after it wrapped its run had nothing to do with the state of the industry amid the coronavirus crisis and was made purely based on ratings. Deputy wrapped its 13-episode run March 26 with an average of 3.66 million total viewers.
Not helping matters was the fact that series star Stephen Dorff, who was among last season's most in-demand actors coming off of a critically hailed turn on HBO's True Detective, had a sizable per-episode fee said to be north of $250,000 (plus exec producer fees). The drama also made a showrunner change ahead of its debut, with Kim Harrison upped from EP to replace Barry Schindel at the helm.
The series was also produced by David Ayer and Chris Long's Cedar Park banner. Yara Martinez, Brian Van Holt, Bex Taylor-Klaus, Sienna Goines and Shane Paul McGhie co-starred.
Fox has only made a few renewal decisions for the 2020-21 broadcast season, with early pickups for animated series Family Guy, The Simpsons and Bless the Harts. Animated series typically require early renewals as they require at least a year to deliver episodes. Of Fox's freshman class, the network has already axed critical punching; bag Almost Family.
