Peacock is reworking its slate, and it’s bad news for fans of YA dramas Vampire Academy and One of Us Is Lying.
Deadline reported Friday night that both series had been canceled after their most recent runs on the streaming service.
Vampire Academy came from Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries) and was expected to be a big hit for the service, but Deadline notes that the numbers didn’t justify a second season.
“St. Vladmir’s Academy isn’t just any boarding school — it’s a hidden place where vampire royals are educated and half-human teens train to protect them from the savage ‘Strigoi’ vampires who would like to see them destroyed,” reads the logline for the series.
Vampire Academy stars Daniela Nieves (Snowfall) as Royal Moroi vampire Lissa Dragomir, Sisi Stringer (Mortal Kombat) as Rose’s Dhampir Guardian Rose Hathaway, and Kieron Moore (Sex Education) Dhampir Guardian Dimitri Belikov.
The cast also includes Andre Dae Kim (Degrassi Next Class) as Royal Moroi vampire Christian Ozera, J. August Richards (Angel) as Victor Dashkov, and Anita-Joy Uwajeh (Lucky Man) as Tatiana Vogel.
Also on the cast is Mia Mckenna-Bruce (Persuasion) as Mia Karp, Rhian Blundell (Nobody Girl) as Meredith Beckham, Jonetta Kaiser (Tales) as Sonya Karp, and Andrew Liner (grown-ish) as Mason Ashford.
The series netted a 77% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but the audience score was 48%.
One of Us is Lying, meanwhile, is one of few Peacock shows to make it to a second season, and thanks to the self-contained nature of the show, many of the mysteries were resolved at the end of the second season.
The season 2 cast includes Marianly Tejada (Bronwyn), Chibuikem Uche (Cooper), Annalisa Cochrane (Addy), Cooper van Grootel (Nate), Jess McLeod (Janae), Melissa Collazo (Maeve), Sara Thompson (Vanessa), and Alimi Ballard (Kevin).
The cancellations of both shows come as streaming services are tightening their grip on spending, and it has led to some shocking results in recent months.
Deadline notes that possibilities away from Peacock are being explored for both Vampire Academy and One of Us Is Lying.
The latter has an international streaming deal with Netflix, which could make the service a likely home.
Then again, Netflix picked up Girls5eva from Peacock last year, and it hadn’t been announced in advance that Peacock was parting ways with it.
So, maybe that avenue has already been explored.
What are your thoughts on the cancellations?
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Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.