Spectrum Survivor 'Joe Pickett' Canceled After Two Seasons

So long cowboy. Paramount+ will not be ordering any of their own seasons of cowboy drama Joe Pickett, starring Michael Dorman.

The series, based on the Joe Pickett novels written by C.J. Box, was originally created as part of the slate of Spectrum Originals in early 2021. Its first season aired exclusively on Spectrum in December of that year, its ten episodes airing over 3 weeks. In February 2022, the series was renewed for a second season, only for Spectrum Originals head Katherine Pope to depart in July 2022 for Sony Pictures Television, and so the division announced shutdown the following month. Being produced by Paramount Television Studios, its streaming rights were held by Paramount+, who had begun streaming the first season on May 15. So it wasn’t quite a rescue, but they did achieve something of contingency.

Season 2 would premiere on Paramount+ in June 2023. The season finale, which now serves as a series finale, was released on July 30. The two seasons will remain on the service, though Variety in particular includes the caveat “for the time being”, so it’s difficult to parse what’s going on there. In the second season, the Wyoming game warden discovers a hunter murdered in the mountains and realizes [that hunter] is just one [victim] of a series of gruesome murders. To solve the case and catch the killer, Joe must navigate a radical anti-hunting activist, a ghoulish set of twins living off the grid, and his own tortured past. Joe and his wife, Marybeth, played by Julianna Guill, discover that the murdered men weren’t as innocent as they seemed. But when they dig too deep, they are forced to go on the run and fight for their very lives.

Since Paramount+ inherited the second season, this means that season three would’ve been the first they ordered themselves. Of course, they have declined to do so. Skywalker Hughes, David Alan Grier, Kamryn Pilva, Sharon Lawrence, Mustafa Speaks, Vivienne Guynn, Chad Rook, Aadila Dosani, Patrick Gallagher, and Robert Le Blanc also starred. 

The show was created by John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle, who also served as as directors, executive producers, and showrunners. Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher executives produced by Red Wagon Entertainment, alongside Box.

Source: Variety