Is there a ‘Schmigadoon!’ season 3?

Debuting on Apple TV Plus in 2021, Schmigadoon! quickly made a name for itself as the first thing in a while that your theater friends were excited about besides Hamilton.

For two seasons, the series combined the affection for musicals that all theater dorks possess, with the bone-deep, tooth-grinding frustration that their parents feel halfway through supportively watching their second community production of RENT in six months. The resulting chaos has frequently bordered on iconic, from fully-produced musical numbers about corn puddin’ to the show’s main characters’ real-if-naive sense of pride in having paired up a weird woman who had too many orphans with a weird man who didn’t have enough meat for his pies. 

And speaking of a creeping sense of dread, it’s been some time since Schmigadoon! wrapped up its second season in May of 2023. It’s not unusual for Apple to go radio silent on any production that isn’t Ted Lasso, but should fans be worried? Schmigadoon! always comes back, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it?

Bad news, Schmigadoon! fans

On January 18, 2024, Schmigadoon! co-creator Cinco Paul filled fans in on the bad news via Instagram. 

“I am sad to share that Apple will not be moving forward with Season 3 of Schmigadoon!” Paul wrote, going on to thank the cast and crew of the show and call it a “miracle” that the series had seen a second season at all. 

It’s not all bad news. According to Paul’s post, the third season of the show was already written when the axe came down at Apple TV Plus, “including 25 new songs.” “This was tough news to get, but the optimist in me is convinced it’s not the end,” Paul said of the show’s cancelation.

We live in a magical age when a network’s decision to not go forward with a project doesn’t necessarily mean the end for a show, just that it’s on hold until Paramount Plus comes up with enough Yellowstone money to pay for a revival. Who knows? Maybe in a year or two, enough musical theater kids will have pooled our allowances to bring back Cecily Strong, Keegan-Michael Key, Alan Cumming, Kristen Chenoweth, and, in a perfect world, Tituss Burgess, carrying the show organically into the era of Rent, CATS, and other post-Fosse Broadway productions. We’ll keep an ear to the ground for any more optimistic updates. Until those come, it’s our unenviable duty to relay the message that Schmigadoon! is kaput.