Fourth in a series on broadcast network series renewals. Fox is looking forward to the 2024-25 season after a strike-disrupted 2023-24 lineup which featured only three live-action scripted series, returning dramas The Cleaning Lady and Alert and comedy Animal Control, with the network’s top drama series, 9-1-1: Lone Star MIA.
The 12-episode fifth season of Lone Star will be used to launch Fox’s two new drama series, delayed to next season by the strikes, Rescue HI-Surf and Doc. The network is so high on the former, it just ordered seven more episodes, bringing the lifeguard drama’s freshman season to 19 episodes.
Also delayed by the strikes was Season 2 of anthology drama Accused, which will air in 2024-25 alongside 9-1-1: Lone Star, new series Rescue HI-Surf, Doc and Canadian drama co-production Murder in a Small Town as well as Fox’s fully owned comedy Animal Control, which was renewed for Season 3 in February, ahead of its second-season premiere.
Will The Cleaning Lady and Alert join them?
For a second consecutive season, a third-year Fox series lost one of its lead actors who tragically died while the show was in production. Last year, it was Call Me Kat’s Leslie Jordan. This year, it was The Cleaning Lady‘s Adan Canto.
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Call Me Kat was ultimately canceled. The Cleaning Lady, headlined by Élodie Yung, is not expected to have the same fate. The drama’s ratings have softened this season, in which it navigated through Canto’s illness and subsequent death, bidding the star an emotional on-screen goodbye.
I hear the producers have pitched to Fox their ideas where they want to take the series creatively without Canto’s character Arman Morales and the plans have been very well received. Additionally, the financial standing of the series, a co-production between Warner Bros. TV and Fox Entertainment, are expected to improve significantly in Season 4 with no deficit and strong international revenue, making it a lucrative business proposition for the network. A renewal is considered very likely.
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Also expected to continue is missing persons drama Alert, starring Scott Caan and Dania Ramirez. Its linear ratings also have been down year-to-year but the procedural’s streaming viewership on Hulu has been on an upswing, and it’s well liked internally. A third season is considered pretty much a lock.
9-1-1: Lone Star
Jack Zeman / Fox
The move last year of Fox’s most watched series of 2022-23, 9-1-1, to ABC after six seasons over cost concerns raised questions about the long-term future of the network’s second most watched scripted series, spinoff 9-1-1: Lone Star. The speculation intensified after Deadline revealed in November that Lone Star (which is less expensive than the mothership) wouldn’t be airing new episodes this season, with many wondering whether Season 5 would be the first responders drama’s last on Fox.
Sources at both Fox and producing studio 20th Television stress that no decision on the future of Lone Star will be made until Season 5 airs next fall.
Still, sustaining a high-end drama like Lone Star from an outside studio under a model better suited for a vertically integrated network and studio is challenging. 20th TV is reportedly running a deficit on the show, and the two sides could not find a way to make new episodes this season. Fox had been targeting an 18-episode order — six episodes for midseason and 12 for fall — ultimately settling on a 12-episode Season 5 pickup for 2024-25 season.
On the animation side, Fox’s portfolio has been renewed for next season as animated series need longer lead time to produce new episodes. That includes veterans The Simpsons, Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers, which are in the middle of two-season renewals, as well as Krapopolis, Grimsburg and The Great North whose fifth season pickup has not been officially announced but it was confirmed by co-creator Wendy Molyneux.
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