Renewals and Cancellations: 'Sunny,' 'Mayor of Kingstown, 'Dune: Prophecy'

There is enough activity ahead of the holiday break that we have two editions of Renewals and Cancellations this week. Earlier, it was announced that Silo, A Man on the Inside, and Bad Monkey would be back, while Girls5Eva and The Old Man had been canceled.

Now, Apple has issued a rare cancellation to Rashida Jones’ Sunny, a not-particularly-good sci-fi series that seemed like a better idea than it actually was. It had a promising start but quickly faded, so the cancellation isn’t much of a surprise.

Elsewhere, I’m surprised it took this long for Paramount+ to renew a show from Taylor Sheridan, the guy holding the streamer together. They’ve finally picked up another season of Jeremy Renner’s Mayor of Kingstown. For those who have never watched, Kingstown is the modern-day Burn Notice: entertaining but completely incoherent. Renner’s character basically drives from one insane situation to another for 45 minutes and then does it all over again the next week. To maybe its credit, it’s also the least Taylor Sheridan-esque of his shows (he co-runs it with character actor Hugh Dillon).

This isn’t a renewal or a cancellation, but it falls within that penumbra: Netflix has secured the rights to the 2027 and 2031 FIFA Women’s World Cup, which is a huge get for the streamer and an opportunity for women’s soccer to gain an even bigger audience (it’s already more popular than men’s soccer in America). Netflix has two football games this Christmas and WWE’s Raw to work out its kinks with live programming ahead of the event, which will fetch bigger audiences worldwide than the dumb Mike Tyson-Logan Paul boxing match.

Elsewhere, Hulu has picked up a fourth season of Tell Me Lies, the popular college-set sex drama. I watched half a season earlier this year but checked out—not because it was necessarily bad but because it’s decidedly not for me, nor is it meant to be. I’d maybe describe it as a Cinemax version of Gossip Girl.

Finally, HBO renewed Dune: Prophecy. I have no idea why. Seldom have I seen a buzzy show lose so much momentum. My guess is that it was very expensive to build the sets and they want to justify another season, but the series quickly fell out of the Nielsen Top 10. I suspect this wasn’t a renewal based on its ratings.