The first season of American Crime Story aired nearly a year ago now. FX liked the show so much, the network ordered a renewal pretty quickly, which means that it would make sense for new episodes to be hitting the schedule at least soon-ish. Unfortunately, that doesn't look to be the case as FX President of Programming John Landgraf revealed new episodes won't be hitting the schedule until 2018. Here's why Katrina: _American Crime Story _will be premiering so late:
We have really high ambitions for this. It's about character and larger themes. It's just taking time, frankly, to get material we're happy with. Also, when you're shooting in New Orleans, you have to worry about hurricanes. You can only shoot there during certain times of the year.
So, it looks like there are some creative considerations as well as practical considerations related to why Katrina: American Crime Story will not be hitting the schedule at all in 2017. It's not super weird for the show to be skipping a full season. It takes a long time to write, then shoot and then go through the whole post-production process for a series. In a lot of cases it's almost better if a show gets an early renewal before the season has even premiered so that the creative team can start looking ahead to the next season. However, it should be noted that almost never happens with a show in its first season, as networks generally want to keep an eye on the ratings before signing on for Season 2.
Again though, American Crime Story is not the only popular show that will be skipping 2017. We learned a few months ago that Westworld has been renewed for Season 2, but also won't be back until 2018. In addition, John Landgraf revealed at TCA (via Mashable) that its other popular show Atlanta will also be out of rotation during 2017. That change is less about creative direction and more about series lead Donald Glover landing a huge role playing the young Lando Calrission in the upcoming Star Wars Han Solo prequel.
Although the premiere date for American Crime Story Season 2 is a ways out on FX, we do know a bit about what to expect from the upcoming episodes of the series. Obviously, the new episodes will focus on Katrina, and series producer Ryan Murphy has already said that Katrina fits perfectly into a "crime" series, as many people "who didn't have a strong voice" were duped during the catastrophic event. We'll obviously keep you updated as more details, including the cast, are revealed.
In the meantime, there's plenty of stuff still heading to the schedule over the next few weeks. To find out when your favorites are returning, take a look at our midseason TV premiere schedule.
