Roswell, New Mexico Showrunner Addresses Recent Trend of Scrapped TV Shows

It has become increasingly a trend in the entertainment industry, the cancellation of already completed television shows as a cost saving measure so that networks can take advantage of tax write offs. It's a strategy that Warner Bros. Discovery has employed by scrapping reality competition The Big D and the second season of Chad and, more recently, AMC Networks has employed with the cancellation of Demascus, Invitation to a Bonfire, and the second seasons of 61st Street and Pantheon, the latter two which had nearly completed work on their second seasons. Netflix also recently axed the second season of the animated series Inside Job and while this trend is growing more and more common, at least one showrunner is speaking out about the practice. Carina Adly MacKenzie, creator of The CW's Roswell, New Mexico, addressed the matter in a recent Twitter thread, calling it a "direct betrayal of promises made" (via Deadline).

"This 'trend of killing completed projects for corporate tax breaks isn't just sad, it's a direct betrayal of promises made when deals are signed," MacKenzie wrote. "We're going to have to start to need language in our contracts, or penalties maybe, to shift this — but that will be very hard."

Saw a bunch of “it IS fair for a network to just decide not to air a completed TV season, because everyone who worked on it still got paid” tweets so I wanted to talk about some of the nuances of that.

— carina adly mackenzie (@cadlymack) January 8, 2023

In her lengthy thread, MacKenzie explains that while the practice is legal and has gone on for decades, it was once fairly rare — and that previously typically "a network burned off completed episodes on like, Saturday nights, but still aired them." She also explained the process a bit, detailing how studios and streamers are very involved with the project so it isn't necessarily a matter of a show being "good" or not.

"You do your job, hold up your part of the deal, the way they ask you to," she added. "Then they decide they don't want to do their part of the job — for a tax break. And suddenly you're paid, but you're NOT getting the support you were promised as part of the deal."

MacKenzie also wrote that while the Writer's Guild will address the issues, it's also just another thing that the WGA will have on its list — and noted that "we never win them all."

While MacKenzie's thread was specifically addressing television, it isn't just television that has seen completed or nearly completed projects cancelled in recent months for tax purposes. Warner Bros. Discovery notably shelved the Batgirl film as well as an animated sequel to Scoob! While those projects will likely never see the light of day, at least in terms of some of the cancelled television projects, there could be some hope. Some of the showrunners for the various cancelled series have expressed hope that their shows will end up being shopped out to other networks.

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