Stumptown Season 2 Axed by ABC, Show too Find New Home

Stumptown gets stumped by COVID19, at least its producers at ABC sure were. The ongoing pandemic restrictions have changed all schedules, including those of Stumptown, for the worse.

As a result, four months after ABC renewed the Stumptown TV series for a second season, all those plans have been cancelled.

Starring Cobie Smulders, Jake Johnson, Tantoo Cardinal, Cole Sibus, Adrian Martinez, Camryn Manheim, and Michael Ealy, Stumptown could still be alive somewhere else though.

For a number of factors, the new season wouldn’t have been ready to air by end of the traditional broadcast season in April, forcing ABC to rescind the renewal order.

The cast and crew were told of the decision to cancel on September 16.

Deadline reports that the series’ production plans, like many shows’, have been negatively impacted by the current pandemic.

In addition, extra time was needed to work on season two scripts. Stumptown was due to take a showrunner change at the end of the first season.

The show was reportedly also an expensive one to produce and having to take COVID-19 precautions would lead to significant budget increases.

The first season of Stumptown averaged a meagre 0.49 rating in the 18-49 demographic and of the network’s 20 scripted series that aired during the regular 2019-20 season, Stumptown was the lowest-rated show in the renewed basket, ranking 17th of 20 programs.

The series, however, did well in streaming and delayed viewing.

Which brings us to the good news announced by ABC Signature, which produces the series. It is hoping to shop the series elsewhere and find it a new home.

Considering that Stumptown does well in delayed viewing, a streaming service would seem to be a good bet.

In the TV show, Dex Parios (Smulders) is a strong, assertive, and sharp-witted military veteran who lives in Portland, Oregon. She has a complicated love life, gambling debt, and a brother with Down syndrome, Ansel (Sibus), to care for.

With only herself to rely on, she solves other people’s messes with a blind eye toward her own.

Her military intelligence skills make Dex a great private investigator, but her unapologetic style puts her in the firing line of hardcore criminals and the police aren’t her biggest fans either.