Starz is putting an end to three series, all of which were in their second seasons.
According to Variety, Run the World, starring Corbin Reid, Bresha Webb and Amber Stevens West, has been canceled along with Blindspotting, starring Jasmine Cephas Jones and Heels, starring Allen Maldonado. On top of this, Starz is ending its production of Season 1 of The Venery of Samantha Bird. There were reportedly only two episodes left of the series’ first season to shoot.
Run the World was created by Leigh Davenport and executive produced by Davenport and Living Single creator Yvette Lee Bowser. The series followed three friends as they traversed the ups and downs of life and love in Harlem and included Living Single alum Erika Alexander among its cast. Blindspotting is based on the film by Rafael Casal and Hamilton star Daveed Diggs, both of whom also wrote and executive produced the series, with Casal as showrunner.
Heels, created and executive produced by Loki Season 1 head writer Michael Waldron, followed a group of professional wrestlers known as the Duffy Wrestling League, who are trying to grow beyond their small Georgia roots and into the big time. Mike O’Malley also starred and served as showrunner.
The cancellation of The Venery of Samantha Bird highlights some of the struggles the writers and actors strikes have been about, since the series was cancelled before it ever made it to air, possibly putting the series’ actors and writers in difficult positions when it comes to finding work after networks’ fall and winter seasons have already been set. Coincidentally, production of the series was put on hold during the writers strike. The series would have starred Katherine Langford as Samantha, a woman who goes back home to New England and reconnects with a childhood sweetheart, but the romance becomes anything but perfect.