AMC’s Low Winter Sun, also known as AMC’s ‘Please-Please-Just-Keep-Watching-Even-Though-Breaking-Bad-is-Ending,’ has been canceled in its infancy after just one season. Based on the British mini-series of the same name, the show starred Mark Strong and Lennie James. Although it was given what is arguably AMC’s most valuable time slot, the series failed to garner any of that sweet post-Breaking Bad traction. Petering down to about 630,000 viewers for its season finale, Low Winter Sun seemed pretty likely to get axed, in retrospect.
Similarly, Low Winter Sun yielded lukewarm critical reception too. Metacritic shows a “mixed” score of 59 and the Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus is pretty harsh as well: “Mark Strong makes for a compelling lead, but Low Winter Sun is too serious for its own good, sagging under the weight of its bleak, brooding tone.”
So, all smug Breaking Bad elitism aside – it seems that AMC really has a hard time keeping their series. Breaking Bad and Mad Men are both known to be successes that exist at the expense of lengthy creative battles with the network. Other than that, AMC has a similar track record of mediocre shows with low viewership. Remember Rubicon (also canceled after its first season)? How about The Killing? Hell on Wheels only seems to be hanging on by the merit of its decent critical reviews.
The Walking Dead is the one show in AMC’s arsenal with real staying power – with Breaking Bad over now and Mad Men ending shortly on its final seventh season, Low Winter Sun is not likely to be the last experimental show from AMC that we’re going to see either. As the network scrambles to find its next Walking Dead, who knows what we’re going to get? No matter what it is, hopefully it’s something a little bit more engaging and with a lot less morbidity.
And maybe a little bit of creator input? How about it, AMC?
