Has ABC's quirky musical comedy already sung its last happily ever after? Although the network has yet to officially announce a cancellation or renewal for fantasy series Galavant , this latest bit of news may sound the death knell for the little show that could: star Joshua Sasse has been cast in No Tomorrow , a fall pilot for The CW, according to Deadline. (In a cruel twist of fate, even the very name of Sasse's new project seems to spell doom for his former show.) So what does that mean, now that Sir Gary Galavant himself has a new starring role lined up? Will Galavant be renewed for Season 3? Or is its cancellation all but certain? Update: On May 12, ABC cancelled Galavant, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter.
Earlier: Well, first of all, it's important to point out that nothing is ever sure in the unpredictable television industry. Nobody ever thought Galavant would get a second season, let alone a third. After its first low-rated season, which saw its viewers dwindle from 7.42 million for the premiere to 4.37 million for the finale, typically reliable prognostication site TVByTheNumbers gave Galavant a literal zero percent chance of renewal. And yet, renew it ABC did, to pretty much everyone's shock (and delight).
But in its second year on the air, Galavant's ratings have gotten even worse. Season 2 premiered to well below Season 1's numbers, with only 3.20 million people tuning in to the first episode; that number plummeted to a scant 2.15 million for the finale on Jan. 31. TVByTheNumbers currently has Galavant listed as the only ABC series that is a "Sure Bet to be cancelled by May 2016." Of course, they said the same thing about the show last year, so take that with a grain of salt. But no matter how you spin those numbers, things were already looking pretty grim for Galavant even BEFORE the recent news of Sasse's casting.
In its report on the casting, Deadline points out that No Tomorrow has Sasse in "first position," meaning The CW gets priority on the actor over any other potential projects. That means that, if No Tomorrow gets picked up to series for the fall, then "Sasse will only appear in the first episode of the potential third season" of Galavant, according to Deadline.
It's difficult to imagine any show going on without its title character… although if any show could, then it's definitely ABC's tongue-in-cheek, self-referential comedy. Heck, we're talking about the show that started its second season with a song and dance number all about how surprising its own renewal was!
Galavant closed out Season 2 with its eponymous hero marrying his true love, Princess Isabella. (Weird Al Yankovic presided, natch.) The happy couple then retired to a seaside cottage where Gal planned to live out his day writing poetry and raising his seven — no, three — children. While the finale did wrap up most of the dangling plot threads, it did leave one lingering storyline in case of another miraculous renewal: Garreth's quest to save his beloved Madalena from her own evil ways. It's not hard to picture Season 3 leaving Galavant in his cottage and embarking on this new adventure, with another irreverent opening number explaining the sudden shift in focus.
For his part, Sasse's new project already sounds promising, coming from Ben Silverman and Corinne Brinkerhoff, an executive producer and a writer on The CW's Jane The Virgin, respectively. Like that critically acclaimed series, No Tomorrow is also based on the "Latin American format" and is set to star Tori Anderson (The L.A. Complex). According to the official synopsis, Anderson will play "a risk-averse female procurement manager at an Amazon-like distribution center. When she falls in love with a man (Sasse) who lives life to the fullest because he believes the apocalypse is imminent, it leads to comedic and poignant results as they embark on a quest to fulfill their individual bucket lists."
No matter what happens to Galavant, it's comforting to know that Sasse will still be on our TV screens this fall. And if the worst does come to pass and the show is cancelled, let's hope the rest of Galavant's diverse and talented cast — like Karen David, Luke Youngblood, Mallory Jansen, and Timothy Omundsun — can find new homes just as quickly.
Image: Sife Elamine/ABC
