Fox cancels The Exorcist and Lucifer, orders vampire series The Passage

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

It was a bad weekend to be a denizen of Hell, as Fox announced that they have cancelled both the television series based on the THE EXORCIST franchise and their "the devil fights crime" show Lucifer.

The Exorcist ran for two seasons on the network, and I can't say its cancellation is a huge surprise. Although the show was received surprisingly well by genre fans, it never had high ratings, and it sort of seemed like it was lucky just to get a second season.

Closing in on the end of its third season, Lucifer brought in more viewers, ranking in the top 10 for the network, but still didn't make the cut. The fact that there's not going to be a fourth season obviously came as a shock to showrunner Joe Henderson, who sadly revealed to fans that the season three finale (which airs on Fox tonight) ends with "a huge cliffhanger" that is going to "frustrate the hell" out of them. Henderson is advising fans to make noise about the show in hopes that they'll be able to #SaveLucifer and find it a new home at a different network.

Meanwhile, bloodsuckers are having a better time at Fox. The network has ordered the vampire thriller The Passage (pictured above) to series. 

Based on a trilogy of novels by Justin Cronin, The Passage is about 

a secret government medical facility experimenting with a dangerous virus that could either cure all disease or cause the downfall of the human race. The series focuses on a 10-year-old girl named Amy Bellafonte, who is chosen to be a test subject for this experiment and Brad Wolgast, the Federal agent who becomes her surrogate father as he tries to protect her.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Vincent Piazza, Saniyya Sidney, and Brianne Howey star.

Producers had to put in some extra effort to get a series order for The Passage. The pilot was initially directed by Marcos Siega, then Jason Ensler was brought on to direct reshoots that removed three characters (who had been played by Genesis Rodriguez, BJ Britt, and Jennifer Ferrin) from the show and replaced them with three other characters.

That's a bit of shame, because the presence of Genesis Rodriguez in the cast would have been the main draw of the show for me.