The Old Man has been cancelled by FX after two seasons

Deadline reports that FX has cancelled The Old Man after two seasons. The series, which is based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Thomas Perry, stars Jeff Bridges as former CIA agent Dan Chase and John Lithgow as former FBI Assistant Director Harold Harper.

The cancellation largely stems from the multiple delays the series has experienced. Production was first shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When production resumed months later, it had to halt soon after when Bridges was diagnosed with lymphoma and contracted COVID-19 while in treatment. Nearly a year later, Bridges announced he was in remission, and work on the first season was finally completed. Production on the second season was also brought to a halt due to the 2023 Hollywood strikes. Although the first season of The Old Man became the most-watched FX series debut on Hulu on its opening weekend, there was a gap of over two years between seasons thanks to all the delays, and the audience wasn’t there anymore.

The second season of The Old Man found Dan Chase and Harold Harper setting off on their most important mission to date — to recover Emily Chase (Alia Shawkat) after she is kidnapped by Faraz Hamzad (Navid Negahban), a powerful Afghan tribal leader. With all three men claiming her as their daughter, Emily finds herself in an identity crisis that has dire implications.

Our own Alex Maidy was a big fan of the second season, which he felt was even better than the first. “The Old Man was a good show that took the leap to great and delivered a nail-biting run, which is one of the best second seasons I can recall,” Maidy wrote. “No one is safe in this story that sees a hefty body count while never being about violence for the sake of violence. The Old Man has grown beyond its title into something that embraces the age of the lead actors while not letting it define them. This is a story of the consequences of youth haunting you later in life, and I cannot think of better actors to overcome the challenge.” You can check out the rest of his review right here.

How do you feel about The Old Man getting cancelled?