(Photo: Dennis Mong/Showtime)
The journey of Del Harris has ended. The American Rust TV show has been cancelled so there won’t be a second season of the Showtime series
A family drama series, the American Rust TV show is based on the novel by Philipp Meyer and stars Jeff Daniels, Maura Tierney, Bill Camp, David Alvarez, Alex Neustaedter, Julia Mayorga, Mark Pellegrino, and Rob Yang. A story of survival and transcendence, it’s told through the eyes of Del Harris (Daniels). He’s the complicated (and compromised) chief of police of a Pennsylvania Rust Belt town that’s full of good people making bad choices. When news of the murder of an ex-cop rips through the town, Harris must decide what lengths he is willing to take to protect Billy Poe (Neustaedter), the son of Grace (Tierney), the woman he loves.
Airing on Sunday nights, the first season of American Rust averaged a 0.02 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 304,000 viewers in the live+same day ratings (including DVR playback through 3:00 AM). While these numbers don’t include further delayed or streaming viewing, they are a very good indicator of how a show is performing, especially when compared to others on the same channel.
“We can confirm that American Rust will not be moving forward with a second season,” read a Showtime statement to TribLive. “We would like to thank our partners at Boat Rocker, our talented showrunner Dan Futterman and the rest of the wonderful writers, and our amazing cast led by Jeff Daniels and Maura Tierney.”
A reader of this site named “Pete”, who says they worked on payroll for the show in Pittsburgh, commented yesterday that there had been efforts to sell the show to another outlet. TribLive notes that “producers may try to shop the series to other outlets but the odds of salvation seem slim.”
What do you think? Have you enjoyed the American Rust TV show on Showtime? Are you sad to hear that this series won’t have a second season?