While the executives at Prime Video haven't been as trigger happy as their counterparts at Netflix and HBO in terms of canceling shows, they have sent a few packing during 2022.
Given Amazon's size, as it's currently worth over $1.3 trillion, made $470 billion in 2021 and employs over 1.6 million people worldwide, the decisions by executives are less about the bottom line and more about growing the brand.
Unlike Netflix, which has been cost-cutting amid a drop in subscribers, and Warner Bros. Discovery, which after the two giant corporations merged has been cutting shows and planned projects left, right and center, Prime Video's top brass have acted where it feels like shows aren't attracting the numbers they need to continue.
That means a few shows have been prematurely ended this year and we've rounded them all up.
Paper Girls
Over the last three months, Prime Video has gone into overdrive with launching its giant new arrival, The Rings Of Power, its take on Lord of the Rings. And, as a result, Paper Girls, Amazon's other big launch, didn't get much of a look-in or a marketing push.
The show, which if you watch any of the trailers, was offered up with a decidedly Stranger Things vibe, was set in 1988 and followed four girls who, while out delivering newspapers the morning after Halloween, become caught in a conflict between warring factions of time-travelers.
The show features a largely unknown cast, with the only established presence coming from comedian Ali Wong. Set over eight episodes, Paper Girls was adapted from the comics by Y: The Last Man and Marvel's Runaways creator Brian K. Vaughan.
Only launched at the start of August, it was dropped by the middle of September.
The Wilds
Young adult drama The Wilds, which took the narrative established in William Golding's Lord of the Flies, and flipped it to feature a group of teenage girls instead of a group of boys, was axed not long after the arrival of its second season.
The show's first outing followed the girls who, after being left stranded on a desert island following a plane crash, discover that their ordeal is the subject of a sadistic social experiment. Season two, however, ups the ante by adding a whole new threat into the mix – a rival island full of teenage boys.
Upping the ante sadly didn't up the audience and Prime's executives decided to leave the show stranded after just two seasons.
Night Sky
Despite the presence of stars J.K. Simmons and Sissy Spacek, in early July, Prime Video pulled the plug on this expansive sci-fi drama.
According to Deadline's report about the cancelation, the show's sizeable production costs and failure to land a large enough audience led executives to call time on the project.
Night Sky told the story of Spacek's Irene and Simmons' Franklin, a couple who discovered many years previously that there is a chamber buried in their backyard, one which inexplicably leads to a strange, deserted planet. They've carefully guarded their secret ever since, but when Chai Hanson's Jude, a charismatic young man, worms his way into their lives, it's much harder to keep the secret.
A short-lived sci-fi epic then.
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Prime Video rebooted the horror franchise, which had yielded 1997's I Know What You Did Last Summer, 1998's I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and 2006's rather less successful I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, for a TV spin-off.
Taking the story back to the original source material, the 1973 novel of the same name by Lois Duncan, we once again followed group of friends stalked by a ruthless killer one year after covering up a car accident in which they killed someone.
Despite the presence of two heavyweight producers in horror king James Wan and Fast and Furious overseer Neal H. Moritz, the show got a critical kicking and was canned at start of 2022.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Unlike the other shows on this list, which were cut down with their showrunners still planning for the future, Rachel Brosnahan's Midge Maisel will get to bow out on her own terms with a fifth and final season.
The creation of Amy Sherman-Palladino, best known for long-running and much-loved drama Gilmore Girls, and it follows the travails of Miriam 'Midge' Maisel. At the start of the show, Maisel is a homemaker in New York in the 1950s.
After her husband reveals that he's been having an affair, she drunkenly gets on stage at a comedy club and brings the house down. From then on, she pursues her new calling, despite the protestations of her ex-husband, parents and friends.
Led by Rachel Brosnahan, who has been showered with awards for her starring role in the show, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel has been a total joy. Whether Sherman-Palladino had plans for seasons six and seven, the kind of longevity she got with Gilmore Girls, we don't know, but five seasons and out seems like a nice fit for the show.
