Cancelled costume drama!

So long, Peggy and Jarvis...

Thanks a bunch, Friday 13th - Agent Carter has been cancelled. Almost everything I like on telly seems to get cancelled. Two of my favourite shows from last year were Partners In Crime (I even did costume writeups for 'The Secret Adversary' and 'N or M'.) and Jekyll and Hyde. I wasn't taken with the initial episodes of either, but stuck with them and loved them by the end. Unfortunately not many other people felt the same way, and neither is getting a second series. Being a fan of the geeky stuff, I thought that perhaps a 1930s-set monster-battling kids' programme was never going to get big audiences, so I should just be grateful ITV took a punt on Jekyll and Hyde in the first place, but I honestly believed a Marvel production like Agent Carter would have sticking power.

Most of my favourites could be described as 'genre' shows, but now it seems even straight dramas aren't immune to the curse of cancellation. According to an article in The Guardian, Channel 4 recently revealed there would be no third series of Indian Summers. That announcement seems to have sneaked out under most people's radars, but when ITV announced the cancellation of Home Fires earlier this week, people were annoyed enough to start a petition for the decision to be reversed. (You can sign the Home Fires petition here.)

Television costume dramas aren't cheap to make. Makers need to find locations or build sets, find the right sort of things to decorate said locations and sets, buy in costumes and get people able to do period hair and makeup, hire cars, presumably insure all the valuable antiques and so on, and so it's hardly surprising that they're generally at the 'premium' end of most broadcasters' output. It seems to make broadcasters reluctant to keep making one that isn't staggeringly successful straight away, or to allow one to have a slightly less successful few episodes, especially when they can persuade people who want to be reality TV stars to fill their schedules for free without having to worry about costumes or attractive sets. There have been an increasing number of shows featuring real people eating or doing the sort of things done in the past, shows like Victorian Bakers and the Back In Time... series. That's taking the reality TV approach to history, and I do enjoy it, but we could do with some good, regular costume dramas too.

We've still got the Shelbys

What have we got left to look forward to? Peaky Blinders has just started again, though I'm a little annoyed that there are so many large country houses and posh people in the latest series as its working class setting was something that made it so distinctive at first. Less mansion, more pub for the Blinders, please. Poldark is great, and BBC2's forthcoming Versailles looks intriguing, but neither fills the 20th-century niche. Perhaps The Collection will do that, but that's going to be on Amazon, not on a mainstream channel.

Maybe mainstream audiences just like their 20th-century-set programmes to be really cosy, and it will be survival of the cosiest from now on. There's always Call the Midwife, not that I watch that. I'm not really into baby-related stuff or relationship dramas. At least ITV is allowing The Durrells to contine; a second series has already been commissioned.

Is there anything you're looking forward to? Anything you're really annoyed at the cancellation of?