(Photo: Starz)
Starz is finished with Shining Vale. The cable channel has not only cancelled the series (so there won’t be a third season), but Starz is also reportedly planning to pull Shining Vale’s existing two seasons from its streaming platform by the end of this year.
A horror-comedy series, the Shining Vale TV show stars Courteney Cox, Greg Kinnear, Gus Birney, Merrin Dungey, Dylan Gage, and Mira Sorvino. The story begins as a dysfunctional family moves from the city to a small town, into a house where terrible atrocities occur. Wife and mother Patricia “Pat” Phelps (Cox) is a former “wild child” who rose to fame by writing a raunchy, drug-and-alcohol-soaked women’s empowerment novel 17 years ago. Pat is now clean and sober but unfulfilled. She still hasn’t written her second novel and can’t remember the last time she had sex with her ever-optimistic husband, Terry (Kinnear). Her teenage kids, Gaynor (Birney) and Jake (Gageare), are at that stage where they don’t want their mother in their lives. Pat is convinced she’s either depressed or possessed. It turns out that the symptoms are the same. Everyone has their demons, but they may be real for Pat Phelps.
Airing on Friday nights, the second season of Shining Vale averaged a 0.01 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 86,000 viewers. Compared to season one, that’s down by 42% in the demo and down by 46% in viewership in the live+same day ratings (includes DVR playback through 3:00 AM).
Series co-creator Jeff Astrof is hoping that a new home can be found for the show and has been writing season three since production on season two wrapped a year ago. After praising Shining Vale’s cast and crew, Astrof told Variety, “I’m hoping another streamer picks the show up as we still have lots of story to tell — and season three has already been partially written. In any case, I am beyond grateful to have been able to tell the saga of the Phelps for the past two seasons.”
What do you think? Do you enjoy the Shining Vale TV series? Are you disappointed that Starz cancelled the show? Would you watch a third season on another outlet??