Hulu Has Canceled Acclaimed Series The Great After Three Seasons
For three seasons, "The Great" has operated as one of the wildest, most debaucherous, and otherwise fantastic shows to emerge in the era of streaming. Created and overseen by "The Favourite" writer Tony McNamara, the series re-imagines a young Catherine the Great (played superbly by Elle Fanning) and her reign as the Empress of All Russia, taking immense liberties with history in whatever way it deems fit to serve its story (as the show cheekily acknowledges with its full title, "The Great: An Occasionally True Story"). Alas, all things must eventually come to an end, even something as beautifully bizarre and outlandish as "The Great."
Coming off a stellar third season that proved the show has yet to miss a step (one full of all the swooning romance, comical murders, aching drama, marvelous swearing, pitch-dark social satire, and people in period garb awkwardly going to pound town that fans of the series have grown accustomed to), Hulu has sadly elected not to renew "The Great" for a fourth season. As Deadline observed while confirming the news, "It's unclear what made the streamer decide to cancel the comedy," given its almost-universally positive reviews and apparent popularity.
It's almost as though streaming services refusing to release the viewership numbers for their shows to the general public makes it unnecessarily difficult for outside parties (like the viewers who would gladly campaign to save their favorite series if they knew it wasn't a lost cause) to tell if a title is even performing well or not. Perhaps we ought to do something about that?
Catherine's reign has come to an end
Do we have a word that means the opposite of "huzzah"? Oh well, "Not huzzah!" will have to do.
Without giving away the game for those who've yet to finish season 3 (or even indulge in the sumptuous historical satire that is "The Great" at all), it's fair to say the season wrapped up on a note that could somewhat suffice as a satisfying conclusion to the series — in the sense that it was strange, funny, and sad all at once, as "The Great" so often is. By the sound of it, however, the plan was to keep going for at least another season, if not longer.
Speaking during the 2020 Television Critics Association winter tour (via Decider), executive producer Marian Macgowan revealed, "We initially pitched six seasons. So we believe there's sufficient material to take us through until [Catherine] is an old woman." Much more recently, during an appearance on Deadline's "Crew Call" podcast in June 2023, McNamara teased the idea of season 4 featuring a "much more unpredictable" Catherine in the wake of her personal losses in season 3.
Sadly, it seems we will just have to imagine what might've been (and no, this is one case where cracking open a history book would only be so helpful). Let's all pour one out and then smash our empty glasses on the floor one last time in honor of Catherine and the rest of the gang, shall we?