(Photo by Disney+)
After two years, it’s game over for the Big Shot TV series. Disney+ has cancelled the John Stamos show so there won’t be a third season.
A sports comedy-drama series, the Big Shot TV show was created by David E. Kelley, Dean Lorey, and Brad Garrett. It stars Stamos, Jessalyn Gilsig, Richard Robichaux, Sophia Mitri Schloss, Nell Verlaque, Tiana Le, Monique Green, Tisha Custodio, Cricket Wampler, Yvette Nicole Brown, and Sara Echeagaray. After getting ousted from the NCAA, men’s basketball coach Marvyn Korn (Stamos) is given a chance for redemption with a coaching position at an elite private high school, Westbrook School for Girls. Korn soon learns that the teenage players require empathy and vulnerability — foreign concepts for this stoic coach. By learning how to connect with his players, Korn starts to grow into the person he’s always hoped to be.
The show premiered in April 2021 and was renewed for a second season in September of that year. The second season launched last October, a year and a half after the first season’s premiere.
The cancellation isn’t a big surprise as the series wasn’t a big hit for Disney+. Also, sports shows are expensive because they are complicated and difficult to film.
Peter Rice was a big champion for the series. However, the former Chairman of Disney General Entertainment Content for The Walt Disney Company, was fired in June despite having recently renewed his contract through 2024. The Wall Street Journal reported:
A senior Disney official cited Mr. Rice’s decision to renew two struggling shows on the Disney+ streaming service — The Mighty Ducks and Big Shot — as examples of questionable deal-making. Both shows cost more than $50 million and neither had shown the type of success that merited additional seasons, this official said.
But people familiar with Mr. Rice’s thinking countered that the shows were renewed in part because the Covid-19 pandemic had made it challenging to develop and produce new programming and both were well reviewed.
Also, Mr. Rice believed there wasn’t enough stability on the platform and it was important to have some consistency so viewers wouldn’t get frustrated at series coming and going, they said.
The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers has also been cancelled after two seasons.
What do you think? Did you enjoy the Big Shot TV series? Are you disappointed that this Disney+ show won’t get a third season?