Some massive TV news just broke, one that doesn’t exactly come as a huge shock, but certainly has to be a little embarrassing for all involved. The biggest TV launch of the year (at least in advance) was HBO’s “Vinyl,” Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger’s ’70s-set music drama starring Bobby Cannavale as a cork-snorting music exec. Hugely expensive (apparently at least $100 million) and much-hyped, it unfortunately proved to be… not very good.
Reviews were lukewarm, and audiences even more so, but nevertheless, the cable giant bullishly double-downed on the show, announcing a second season after just a single episode had aired, albeit later announcing that they’d fired showrunner Terence Winter (who, like Scorsese, had worked with the network on “Boardwalk Empire”), with Scott Z. Burns coming in to replace him. But now it seems that they’ve had second thoughts, as reports have emerged from The Hollywood Reporter and elsewhere that the network have scrapped plans for a second season of the show, essentially cancelling the show.
READ MORE: ‘Vinyl’ Loses Its Groove And Why HBO Is Struggling In The Era Of Peak TV
“After careful consideration, we have decided not to proceed with a second season of ‘Vinyl,’” HBO said. “Obviously, this was not an easy decision. We have enormous respect for the creative team and cast for their hard work and passion on this project.” Though the renewal was somewhat surprising, it’s not a shock that this has happened, given that the network’s programming president Michael Lombardo was replaced recently, and new incumbent Casey Bloys is probably keen to make a splash.
It’s also not unprecedented — “Luck” was cancelled in 2012 during production on a second season, and last year “The Brink” was renewed, only to be cancelled. But it does speak to the problems that the network are having in finding new drama, something we touched on in this extensive HBO piece here. In the meantime, “Vinyl” will have to go down as one of the great missed opportunities of the golden age of TV.
