Cancelled


CBC cancels Strange Empire

Strange Empire will not be returning for a second season, the CBC confirmed Monday.

The one-hour Western drama bowed on the CBC this fall, with season one featuring 13 episodes. Strange Empire had an average audience of 308,000 viewers (2+, total), according to Numeris data provided by the CBC.

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Although I didn't have high hopes for this, it's still kind of a drag.



"In a time of universal deceit,
telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
George Orwell

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I also enjoy westerns and even westerns that paint outside the lines. I wish I could have seen this one but this is the first time I have heard of it. Is there any chance it will be on the Western channel or one of the other channels on Direct TV. Would it maybe be on YouTube? Can it be rented through Netflix? Some programs with a short run turn into cult favorites.

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For now, the CBC is still streaming episodes at http://www.cbc.ca/strangeempire/. Of course you have to put up with the usual repetitive ads.

As for the show being shown anywhere else: producers are usually keen to announce that they have sold foreign/digital exhibition rights, but I don't recall such an annoucement. It seems that broadcasters looked at the numbers and felt that they wouldn't justify the cost of buying rights to show the series. There is just so much content out there now. It may pop up somewhere, at some point.

The ratings were very low for a show in prime time. Advertisers won't pay prime time prices for a show with such low numbers. The show would have needed to gain hundreds of thousands of new viewers to justify its continuance, and there was no way that was going to happen.

Personally, I don't think the low numbers were because of the genre, or because the leads were female, or because of any flaws in marketing. I think the main reason they were low is related to the quality of storytelling. I also think the show lacks enough charisma to inspire a cult following significant enough to keep its one season afloat for long on other platforms.

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If you get Lifetime Movie Network they're gonna have the show on soon. I just saw an ad for the show, but I didn't see when it's starting. Hope that helps.


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NETFLIX has it on its streaming service

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The entire season is on Netflix, in case you haven't found it yet. So sad that it was cancelled!

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Too bad CBC cancelled it. I am enjoying it and think it is on the level of Hell on Wheels or Lonesome Dove the outlaw years. I like my westerns realistic and a bit gritty. I also like the weird west genre that throws a few curve balls into the western.

It is my belief in the real west that most of the women were non damsels in distress and when it came time for the community or wagon train to defend itself, those women who could shoot were up there on the front line shooting beside the men and the rest were reloading the rifles and keeping them going.

I wish Lifetime or someone had picked it up but once a show is cancelled unless someone moves fast, the cast scatters to the four corners. It will be good while it lasts.

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Actually Lifetime did pick this up I have been watching it every week. I love this show in all it's weirdness.....lol

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By your entry I hope you mean more shows will produced since CBC only produced one season. I have enjoyed it from the getgo.

As you can guess by my username, I am a male and I always enjoy a western and will give any of them a chance. I once had a wife who hated westerns. I like for my westerns to be realistic and that means that strong female characters make it better without making the male characters weaker. I have posted before that I believe that in the real west that when it came to defending the wagon train or the community that if women could shoot they were up on the front line shooting beside the men. If they could not shoot well, and not all men could shoot well either, they were backing up the effort by reloading or helping with the wounded. If very few episodes of the old west were they cowering in the back as damsels in distress. Louis L'Amour is my favorite western author.

I also like westerns that have a mix of other elements making it weird west: sci-fi, horror, etc. Today called thinking outside the box.

I enjoy Hell On Wheels and enjoyed Lonesome Dove, The Outlaw Years so you can see where I am coming from. I hope Strange Empire has a season 2 and more.

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I too really loved to watch a western that had actual female characters written into it, instead of just side-plots. I used to only watch westerns for the horses and scenery... I wish more shows like this were available.

Can we bring it back, like Veronica Mars ?

***So I've seen 4 movies/wk in theatre for a 1/4 century, call me crazy?**

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That sucks. I started watching it this weekend and was able to watch the starting episode online. I hope they change their mind or whatever they need to do to get a second season.

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CBC won't change it's mind. The show was a disaster for them. It's available on Netlfix now.

The problem wasn't anything to do with strong female characters. It was to do with relentless bleakness. Few want to sit through such endless misery.

To go dark and bleak is relatively easy. Supporting that by draining images of colour is a cliché. This is hackwork, a view that is unfaithful to life. The show certainly wasn't an example of "realism." The writing was forced, and screamed "writer."

The creator is a one-trick pony, having done exactly the same type of thing with Durham County.


"Inability has evolved into principle and method." - Marilynne Robinson, Absence of Mind

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Unfortunately stats don't seem to take account of internet and Netflix popularity.
This show had massive potential !

***So I've seen 4 movies/wk in theatre for a 1/4 century, call me crazy?**

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You're right about the interest on other media, but the network will only produce shows that will make enough of a buck - and by regular standards (meaning old and outdated) it wasn't doing well enough to keep it going.

I think the premise had much potential, but I imagine the Slotter story being the core of the 'Strange Empire' couldn't hold enough viewers over the soap opera of violence and meanness that was the old West.

This story is a far cry from other bordertown tales of the West. The lawlessness that was the Canadian West was almost as bad as the American in the treatment of the indians (or indigenous populace) and their rights and property. Some of the storylines touched on the horrendous massacres and forced migrations, and I imagine that it might become more of an issue in further episodes -- but the dichotomy of censoring the display of shooting natives in cold blood against the violence committed by Slotter and his hirelings is at odds.

Lonesome Dove this series is not, but even I'm not sure I fault the writing so much as the meandering vision by the creators in overseeing this episodic series. There is only so much depravity one can abide in an empire building family like the Slotters, I think there were many squandered opportunities to get into the back stories of each of the characters more.

I give this a six out of 10.

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