news ‘Avenue 5’ Canceled at HBO After 2 Seasons

“Avenue 5″ has crash-landed. The Armando Iannucci science fiction comedy series has been canceled at HBO after two seasons, IndieWire has confirmed.

The news comes almost three months after the show wrapped its second season in November. The series, led by Hugh Laurie, originally premiered in January 2020.

“Going to space with Armando Iannucci has been an incredible journey,” an HBO spokesperson said in a statement to IndieWire. “While we will not be moving forward with a third season of ‘Avenue 5,’ we look forward to many more adventures together.”

“Avenue 5” starred Laurie and Josh Gad as the captain and owner of the titular interplanetary cruise ship. Set in 2060, the show also featured Zach Woods, Rebecca Front, Suzy Nakamura, Lenora Crichlow, Nikki Amuka-Bird, and Ethan Phillips as the various employees and passengers onboard Avenue 5. The ship gets tilted off course after a mishap, forcing the group to work together in order to survive a three year voyage back to Earth.

The show scored a Season 2 order in February 2020, in the middle of its first season. The pandemic delayed production until August 2021, and the show ultimately premiered its second season in October 2022, almost three years after its initial premiere.

The series was Iannucci’s second for HBO, after the acclaimed Julia Louis-Dreyfus-led political satire “Veep,” which aired on the network from 2012 to 2019 and picked up three Emmys for Outstanding Comedy Series. The “Thick of It” and “In the Loop” creator remains in business at HBO with his Sam Mendes collaboration “The Franchise.” That series, which stars Billy Magnussen, will focus on the production of a new superhero film, and has been ordered to pilot at the premium cable channel.

Laurie also already has a new project lined up; the “House” star has joined the cast of Apple TV+’s Israeli series “Tehran” for its third season, which is currently filming.

“Avenue 5” received mixed reviews when it originally premiered, with IndieWire critic Ben Travers writing that the series had a “rocky start.” Season 2 was better received, and Travers wrote that series “really took off” in its sophomore outing.

Iannucci executive produced “Avenue 5” with Kevin Loader, Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche, and Will Smith, with Peter Fellows and Becky Martin co-executive producing and Steve Clark-Hall producing. The series was a co-production between HBO and Britain’s Sky UK.

 

[sfoster]

Damn I've never even heard of this show - i would have checked it out.
For the last MONTH every time I log into HBO it's pushing Velma front and center, like damn HBO get the hint i'm not interested.

 

[Nate North]

I watched every episode of Avenue 5. It's...... passable. I really like Hugh Laurie, and some of the supporting cast is decent. It was a weird situation though, because of the HUGE budget they dedicated to this show, combined with writing that was of questionable quality throughout. It had it's moments, but I wasn't particularly sad to see it go, as 2 seasons was enough. I'm glad it exists, mainly because there isn't enough outside the box thinking in the industry. Much like Velma, I spent more time wondering why the show was given the budget of 5 normal shows than I did actually enjoying the show.

Velma on the other hand is just extremely stupid on every level. People are saying that it's entire viewership is just people watching it because they heard other people say how much they hate it. I watched about 5 minutes to see what the fuss was about. I'm not a 7 year old living in the year 1985, so I didn't really want a new scooby doo show anyway, and If I did, I would probably want scooby doo to be in it. Even if it did have scooby doo in it, which it doesn't, I probably wouldn't have wanted Scooby and shaggy, who is also missing, to just crack constant jokes about how stupid and evil all white people are. And even if I did want a show that was dumb enough to be exited about it's own racist agenda, I would want the jokes to be funny, not just a cartoon character spitting hate at everyone in the world except super woke people. It's one of the worst written shows I've ever seen, and it's constantly insulting the work of every other writer in the industry. People decades in the future will look back and see this as the apex of human arrogance and narcissism. A moment where every person felt superior to every other person, and looked down on them, judging them for their crimes of looking down on others, and feeling superior. I had no idea it was on the front page of HBO max, if you released this show alongside all the other animated shows, and no one told anyone else that it was supposed to be a big deal, this thing would be on page 40, underneath the HD re-releasee of Dexters Lab.