Here's Why Dangerous Liaisons Was Canceled After One Season
In more sad streamer news, "Dangerous Liaisons" has been canceled by Starz, reversing its early season 2 renewal. According to Deadline, the remaining three episodes of the first season, which consists of eight episodes total, will air as scheduled and executive producers are actively shopping the new series around to secure another home.
The show's season 2 renewal was announced on November 1, just days before "Dangerous Liaisons" debuted on November 6. Deadline claims that Starz "continued to believe in the show creatively" but was forced to reverse their decision when the period drama "struggled to find an audience." According to live and same-day Nielsen data pulled by the outlet, "Dangerous Liaisons" premiered with a 0.03 rating in the 18-49 demographic and only 88,000 total viewers. As the series went on, the show dropped as low as a 0.02 and only raked in 52,000 total viewers for the episode that aired Thanksgiving weekend. Since then, ratings improved slightly with the December 4 episode, but ultimately the show has yet to reach a six-figure audience thus far.
Starz has not disclosed data on delayed viewing and streaming audiences via their app where "Dangerous Liaisons" was expected to bring in additional numbers.
Not so dangerous anymore
"Dangerous Liaisons" is the second period drama to be canceled at Starz, after "Becoming Elizabeth," another new series, was axed last month. The show is produced by Lionsgate TV, Playground Entertainment, and Flame Ventures — and the film and TV studio has clearly been paying attention to their books ahead of their split from Starz next year.
This is just the latest in a series of harmful studio choices made recently that seem to be a signifier of the streaming bubble finally popping. HBO canceled "Westworld" and "Love Life" with their full projects being removed from the streaming app next month — and those aren't even the first of the terrible "vanishings" of film and TV projects over the last few months. It appears that streamers are starting to realize that removing multiple avenues to make money on a project — for example, physical media sales, theatrical sales, and more — and leaving that mainly up to subscriber fees isn't exactly the most sustainable business model when you're producing tons of high-budget work. That all said, completely vanishing projects that tons of folks worked hard on with the intentions of creating tax write-offs and removing the responsibility to pay residuals isn't the solution, nor is employing a senior team who uninterested in the kind of programming your brand is famous for. And frankly, all these cancellations and removals are upsetting people, and that's not a good look for any of these companies.
"Dangerous Liaisons" was created by Harriet Warner, who also wrote the series alongside Coline Abert, James Dormer, and Rita Kalnejais. She also executive produced alongside Bethan Jones, Scott Huff, Christopher Hampton, Colin Callender for Playground Entertainment, and Tony Krantz for Flame Ventures, with Barney Reisz producing.