The horror comedy series Shining Vale premiered on Starz back in March of 2022, then the second season reached the airwaves this past October. Unfortunately, there won’t be a season 3, as Variety reports that the show has been cancelled for the most common reason a show gets cancelled: it “did not find a large enough audience to continue.” But Starz is going further than just cancelling this show, as they’re also going to be scrubbing it from their archives. “Not only will the show be cut by the network, the first two seasons will be removed from the Starz streaming service at the end of the year.“
Created by Jeff Astrof and Sharon Horgan, the first season of Shining Vale followed a dysfunctional family that moves from the city to a small town into a house in which terrible atrocities have taken place. But no one seems to notice except for Patricia “Pat” Phelps, who’s convinced she’s either depressed or possessed – turns out, the symptoms are exactly the same. Pat is a former “wild child” who rose to fame by writing a raunchy, drug-and-alcohol-soaked women’s empowerment novel (a.k.a. lady porn). Fast forward 17 years later, Pat is clean and sober but totally unfulfilled. She still hasn’t written her second novel, she can’t remember the last time she had sex with her husband, and her teenage kids are at that stage where they want you dead. She was a faithful wife until her one slip-up: she had a torrid affair with the hot, young handyman who came over to fix the sink while Terry was at work. In a last-ditch effort to save their marriage, she and Terry cash in all their savings and move the family from the “crazy” of the city to a large, old house in the suburbs that has a storied past of its own. Everyone has their demons, but for Pat Phelps, they may be real.
Shining Vale stars Courteney Cox as Patricia “Pat” Phelps, Greg Kinnear as Pat’s husband Terry, Merrin Dungey as Pat’s friend and book editor Kam; Gus Birney and Dylan Gage as Pat and Terry’s teenage kids Gaynor and Jake; Mira Sorvino as Rosemary, “who is either Pat’s alter ego, a split personality, her id, her muse, or a demon trying to possess her”; Sherilyn Fenn as realtor Robyn Court; and Judith Light as Joan, “Pat’s Lithium-infused mother, who has long battled mental illness, and her daughter… (who she blames for her mental illness). Joan is vain and hyper-critical, taking any opportunity to recall her prized youth, or belittle Pat. Of all the horrors that Pat faces, becoming Joan is the most frightening – and most real.”
The first season ended with Pat being committed to a psychiatric hospital. Season 2 picked up four months later, when Pat’s insurance runs out and she is released from the psychiatric hospital early. She returns home, determined to pick up the pieces of her broken family, but she quickly finds out her children don’t need her, Terry doesn’t remember her, and to make matters worse, Pat’s new neighbor Ruth looks exactly like Rosemary. As if that wasn’t enough, the house starts to reveal the shocking secrets of its dark past.
Shining Vale was produced by Lionsgate and Warner Bros. Television, in association with Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment, Astrof’s Other Shoe Productions, and Horgan and Clelia Mountford’s Merman. Astrof, Horgan, Mountford, Kaplan, and Dana Honor were all executive producers, while Cox was a producer. The pilot episode was directed and executive produced by Dearbhla Walsh.
Astrof took to Instagram to say, “What an absolute joy I had working on this show. Not a single bad day. Please watch the STARZ (turns out limited) series Shining Vale by 12/31.“
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