'Counterpart' Canceled by Starz

Starz has canceled Counterpart, its J.K. Simmons-led sci-fi espionage drama. Counterpart is [...]

By Kofi Outlaw

Starz Cancels Counterpart

Starz has canceled Counterpart, its J.K. Simmons-led sci-fi espionage drama. Counterpart is currently finishing up its season 2 run, and the season 2 finale will now apparently serve as the official series finale.

Show creator Justin Marks announced the series' cancellation this morning:

"It's been an absolute dream for this team … we got to make exactly the show we wanted to … perfect cast, perfect crew on two continents … and we're so grateful to our network for the time we had. Thank you to everyone who made this journey so special for us. Your tweets, podcasts and intricate conspiracy theories have made it all worthwhile. Fingers crossed that our wonderful studio, MRC, can find a way to keep the dream alive!"

Counterpart was a major critical hit (100% on Rotten Tomatoes; 76% on Metacritic), with a pretty solid cult-following, if not stellar ratings. It's probably for that latter reason that Marks isn't giving up hope just yet.

Counterpart started out as an espionage thriller with a simple high concept: What was once our singular reality was fractured into two realities by a major event. At first the two worlds were mirrors of one another, until awareness of the split sent each reality down a different path. In these worlds we meet Howard Silk (J.K. Simmons), a low-level employee of the clandestine center that manages relations between the worlds. The story of season one kicked off with company man Howard meets his double, who is a ruthless and deadly spy in the mirror world. That simple meeting expanded into a web of twists and betrayals, where no one in either version of Howard's world was who they appeared to be - not even Howard himself.

It's been in season 2 where Counterpart has truly hit its stride, though. The series has expanded its scope and mythos to full create a tale of two worlds, with a touch of LOST-style sci-fi intrigue and slight horror, with deepening character stories that allow each of its talented stars to play out not one but two arcs. It's the world-building that Counterpart has done in season 2 that could conceivably make the series a candidate for continuation on Netflix or another streaming service. As Netflix has demonstrated with several series (most recently its hit stalker drama You, which it picked up from Lifetime), it can take a property that was just bubbling under the surface and push it to much higher levels of success and visibility. Will Counterpart be one of those lucky shows to be saved from the reaper? We'll soon see...

The final episodes of Counterpart will air on Starz every Sunday night for the next few weeks.

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