Party of Five is coming to an end. Again.
Freeform has opted to cancel the reboot with an immigration twist from original series creators Amy Lippman and Chris Keyser after one season. The drama, which wrapped its 10-episode freshman season in early March, was produced by Sony Pictures Television — the same studio that was behind Fox's 1990s original.
First put in development in late 2017 by Sony TV, Freeform — under former head of originals Karey Burke — strongly pursued the project and landed the show in early 2018, with the formal pilot order arriving months later.
Brandon Larracuente, Emily Tosta, Niko Guardado and Elle Paris Legaspi were tapped to play four of the five leads on the drama, taking on roles originally portrayed by Matthew Fox, Neve Campbell, Scott Wolf and Lacey Chabert, respectively. The drama was ordered to series in early 2019, before launching at the start of 2020 to strong reviews. The series currently has a 96 percent rating among critics and 63 percent among viewers. The Hollywood Reporter's chief TV critic Daniel Fienberg called the series the "rare brand reinvention with a clear and urgent purpose."
The drama wrapped its run with an average of 250,000 live same-day viewers. Given the series was produced by an outside studio (Sony), the numbers made it hard to justify a second season as Disney-backed Freeform had to pay a licensing fee to air the show.
Original series creators Keyser and Lippman co-wrote the pilot script alongside Michal Zebede (Castle) for Freeform and executive produce alongside director Rodrigo García.
The decision to cancel the series comes as Freeform is in the midst of a leadership change after network president Tom Ascheim announced last week he would depart this summer for a job overseeing Cartoon Network for WarnerMedia. Freeform is currently searching for his successor.
Freeform's scripted roster now consists of The Bold Type and Siren (both awaiting word on season four) as well as Grown-ish, Good Trouble, Motherland: Fort Salem and Everything's Gonna Be Okay. The latter duo are awaiting word on potential sophomore seasons.
