Amazon Prime Video’s John Goodman fronted political comedy Alpha House has been cancelled after two seasons, it was revealed on Sunday at the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour.
Alpha House follows four GOP senators renting a house together and struggling to keep their personal lives and exploits from tarring their public image as they fight for re-election. The comedy was created by Gary Trudeau and stars John Goodman, Clark Johnson, Matt Malloy and Mark Consuelos.
The half-hour series was one of Amazon’s first forays into scripted programming and it’s first season in-fact aired weekly in 2013, before the streaming service adopted Netflix’s binge model for the second season in 2014. The series has been in limbo since then, with Head of Amazon Studios Roy Price only now stating that it is not a “current” show, though he refused to use the word “cancellation”.
Price went on to say that he never officially cancels anything as he likes to keep his options open and that he could still order another season of Alpha House down the road, if the political climate called for a revival. Such an event is considered highly unlikely, however, as sources tell TVWise that the talent involved with the show have “been aware” of the show’s fate for quite some time and have all “moved on”.
Additionally, the streaming service has also officially passed on drama pilot The Interestings, which is not going forward. The official pass comes weeks after the other hour-long drama pilot from that development slate, the Matt Bomer and Kelsey Grammer starrer The Last Tycoon, was picked up to series with a ten episode order.
The Interestings pilot episode launched on Amazon Prime in both the US and the UK in June and follows a group of artistic teenagers who meet at summer camp in 1974. As they transition into adulthood over the course of the next few decades, their friendships are tested by tragedy, success, failure and secrecy. The drama, based on Meg Wolitzer’s New York Times best-seller, is a co-production with Sony’s TriStar Television and stars Lauren Ambrose, David Krumholtz, Jessica Pare, Matt Barr, Gabriel Ebert, Jessica Collins and Corey Cott.
Amazon Prime Video also set global premiere dates for a wide range of their original scripted series, including: Tig Notaro comedy One Mississippi (September 9th), the third season of Transparent (September 23rd), Woody Allen comedy Crisis In Six Scenes (September 30th), David E. Kelley drama Goliath starring Billy Bob Thornton (October 14th), newsroom drama Good Girls Revolt (October 28th), the second season of Red Oaks (November 11th), the third season of Mozart In The Jungle (December 9th) and the second season of The Man In The High Castle (December 16th).
