Starz has canceled “Magic City,” the drama set in and around a Miami resort hotel in the late 1950s.
“‘Magic City’ will be concluding its two-season run on Starz with Friday’s series finale,” Starz said in a statement. “We are tremendously proud of the series and everyone involved. From the writers, to the cast and crew, it has been an incredible collaboration. This was a story born from Mitch Glazer’s singular vision of Miami, the Magic City of his childhood, and we are grateful to him for bringing it to life on Starz. The season’s story arc will allow us to deliver a satisfying conclusion to the series, and we thank all the fans who checked in to the Miramar Playa.”
“Magic City,” like “Boss” before it, was renewed for a second season before its first had even aired. Both of those shows were part of Starz CEO Chris Albrecht’s attempt to shape his new channel into a worthy challenger for his old one at HBO. Instead, both shows struggled in the ratings, and weren’t the awards magnets Starz had hoped for (“Boss,” by and large, got better critical notices, though reaction to both was mixed), and both have now been canceled.
Meanwhile, most of Starz’s series development is focusing on older period sagas, more in the vein of the channel’s biggest hit to date, “Spartacus.” The night after “Magic City” ends, we get a new series set during the War of the Roses, “White Queen.” “Da Vinci’s Demons” is returning for another season, and the pirate adventure “Black Sails” was also renewed for a second season before the first one aired based on the response at Comic-Con. Another upcoming Starz series, “Outlander,” deals with a nurse from the ’40s who is sent back in time to 1743. (Two other upcoming Starz series, “Fortitude” and “Power,” are set in present day.)
“Magic City” was a show with impressive production values and some interesting performances, but which never gave me a story or character I wanted to hold onto. I watched the first season and a few episodes into the second before deciding the period look and the occasional opportunity to hear Olga Kurylenko discuss Passover seder rituals wasn’t enough to keep me around.
For those of you who’ve been watching the whole time, how do you feel about Starz’s decision to pull the plug after this week’s finale?