It's not been a great week for fans of music-themed entertainment: two big-name shows have been cancelled by two of the best streaming services. Max has taken away the turntables from Rap Sh!t, while Apple TV Plus has dropped the curtain on Schmigadoon!.
In both cases it's not because they're bad shows, far from it. Rap Sh!t has a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes for both of its seasons, while Schmigadoon! has a near-perfect 97% – up from a still-good 89% for the first season. And while of course there's more to shows than their Rotten Tomatoes ratings, when they do score so highly from critics rather than fans – whose reviews can be inflated by review-bombing both positive and negative – it's usually a sign of something worth watching.
Unfortunately in streaming, quantity matters more than quality – and it looks like both shows sounded a bum note as far as viewing numbers were concerned for Max and Apple TV Plus.
How did the shows' creators take the news?
Posting on Twitter/X, Schmigadoon! co-creator Cinco Paul said that the next season and 25 new songs had already been written, but "such is life... It’s a miracle we even got two seasons, honestly, and I’m so grateful we did." While "this was tough news to get, the optimist in me is convinced it's not the end of Schmigadoon... and maybe it's even a happy beginning."
pic.twitter.com/RDc5RPONZcJanuary 18, 2024
Over on Instagram, showrunner Syreeta Singleton said that the writing team were "a real ass group of people", and "the best writers room ever". As the Hollywood Reporter notes, many cast members also turned to social media to express their disappointment as well as their love for the show: Robin Thede's Instagram story spoke for many when she said she was "devastated at this loss but I know your stars will continue to burn brightly".
These aren't the first highly rated shows to be cancelled this year – for example, Max cancelled Our Flag Means Death just last week, a decision more than 50,000 fans have asked them to reconsider – and they won't be the last, unfortunately. In the current financial climate, streaming shows that make it to the end of their second season must feel a bit like Star Trek crew members being asked to don a red sweater before being transported to a hostile planet.
