TV series cancellations typically come from the networks themselves, but The Bastard Executioner creator Kurt Sutter decided to deliver the blow himself. After informing his cast and crew, Sutter took out an ad in THR, revealing that “meh” ratings ultimately led to the 14th-century period drama’s demise.
According to Sutter, the writing had been on the wall for a while. Unlike his popular series Sons of Anarchy, TBX‘s audience didn’t swell over the course of its run. Instead, the show lost more than half of its audience within the first six weeks on air, so Sutter and FX Networks CEO John Landgraf eventually sentenced it to cancellation. The final episode of season 1, which aired on November 17, is the last of the series.
Interestingly, Sutter shared that he didn’t get “the official word” that TBX had been canceled, but he took out the ad knowing that the show wasn’t doing well in terms of numbers. “[The ad] was about letting folks know what a great experience I had, and how proud I was of them,” Sutter told THR.
While there have been other shows that have survived cancellations by jumping networks, TBX likely won’t be one of them. “I don’t write in a vacuum … I like an audience,” said Sutter. “I don’t want to write something that nobody’s f—ing watching.”
Moving forward, Sutter already has multiple projects in the works. Not only will he be producing a Sons of Anarchy spinoff based on the Mayans motorcycle club, he has a movie and two TV ideas that he hopes to bring to fruition. Sutter didn’t share much about the potential series, but he did say that there would be “no horses involved” this time around, and it will shoot on U.S. soil.
