The carnage didn’t exactly reach the proportions of Game of Thrones' infamous “Red Wedding,” but a large number of network TV series got the axe this week including ABC’s long-running (since 2009) Castle, which starred the geek favorite thespian Nathan Fillion (Firefly) and had numerous tie-ins with Marvel Comics, along with Marvel’s period adventure series Agent Carter, the revived Muppet Show, plus the critical hit Nashville, the last execrable gasp of the CSI franchise, and more sitcoms than Carter has liver pills.

The news for direct comic book adaptations was decidedly mixed.  Supergirl, which debuted with great fanfare on the prestigious CBS network, was abruptly sent back to the minors (the CW), while the CW, which tries to make up for its “lack of eyeballs” by appealing to the coveted younger demographic, announced that it was adding the Archie Comics-inspired Riverdale to its roster for the 2016-2017 season.

The ABC series Castle, which spawned board and card games (see “Castle the Board Game” & “Castle: The Detective Card Game”) as well as comics (see “A Second Castle Meta-Graphic Novel”), has been the subject of widespread rumors of friction between the series’ two Canadian stars.  After Stana Katic announced that she would not be back, Fillion tweeted out a plea that he hoped the series would continue, but in spite of solid ratings, ABC has pulled the plug.

Agent Carter is the first of the modern live-action Marvel TV series to get the axe.  It’s been a very bad month for the co-founder of S.H.I.E.L.D., who (spoiler alert) doesn’t fare all that well in Captain America: Civil War, which debuted last weekend, and now has lost her TV show.  Though Disney only produced 18 episodes of Agent Carter, the period drama was actually the favorite of many fans with strong production values, excellent performances, and compelling storylines that centered on a strong, smart, and fully capable female action hero.  While never a ratings hit, Agent Carter did well with the critics, and the series’ cancellation after a cliffhanger episode will leave the show’s fans with a bitter taste in the mouths.  According to EW, actress Hayley Atwell, who was uniformly excellent as Agent Carter, is getting a new series, Conviction, where she plays a troubled former first daughter, who has to straighten her life out and clear the family name in a narrative that mixes political scandal with “Innocence Project” attempts to undue wrongful convictions. 

ABC also declined to pick up Marvel’s Most Wanted even after it ordered a pilot for the series starring Adrianne Palicki as Bobbi Morse (aka Mockingbird) and Nick Blood as Lance Hunter (see “ABC Mockingbird Series Is Back”).  According to The Hollywood Reporter, this spin-off from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., was originally intended to replace Agent Carter, but ABC declined the Mockingbird-centric series for the second year in a row.

Supergirl was actually CBS’s best performing rookie drama in the 18-49 demographic, but the show failed to match the overall ratings of the Network’s previous (and once again current) lineup of sitcoms.  As Variety pointed out, the older-skewing CBS network was an unlikely destination for a show like Supergirl, which should fit in better on the CW, if it gets a decent timeslot and can survive the transition period.

The revived Muppets show got off to a great start thanks a to a major publicity campaign (see “Trailer For New Muppets Series”), but the new show’s adult-skewing comedy aroused considerable opposition (see “One Million Moms Target Kermit”) without gaining it a new audience, and a mid-season change of showrunners (see “Geek TV News Round-Up”) was, according to Variety, unable to improve on the series’ poor 1.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic.

One of the biggest gambles for the next season is the new Archie Comics-based Riverdale series, which is heading to the CW.  The gamble here, like the gambit that ABC tried with The Muppets, involves taking a much more adult approach in presenting the milkshake-swilling denizens of squeaky clean Riverdale.  The producers of Riverdale explain: “The live-action series offers a bold, subversive take on Archie, Betty, Veronica, and their friends, exploring small town life and the darkness and weirdness bubbling beneath Riverdale’s wholesome façade.” Good luck with luring the Twin Peaks audience to Riverdale.

{IMAGE_2}In other news of interest to geek TV viewers, Deadline reports that the FX cable network has begun work “formal script development” of the Mayans spin-off series from Kurt Sutter’s biker drama Sons of Anarchy, with Elgin James writing the pilot script for the project that he is co-creating with Sutter, and EW has provided the first look at Laverne Cox (Orange Is the New Black) as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, everyone’s favorite doctor from Transexual, Transylvania, in Fox’s “live” version of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which is headed to the small screen next fall (see “Mid-February Geek TV Round-Up).