The future looked bright for “Counterpart” when it premiered on the Starz network in 2017 with a two-season order. The mind-bending series follows Oscar winner J.K. Simmons as a lowly office worker at a U.N. agency called the Office of Interchange who discovers that the government is locked in a cold war against a parallel universe.
Straddling both our dimension and its opposing reality, both seasons hold a perfect 100% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing, and the “Counterpart” Season 2 finale ends with the portal between the two worlds closing for good. Unfortunately for fans of the densely plotted and expertly characterized drama, after Season 2, Starz announced that the series would not return for a third season. According to the network, “Counterpart” was out of step with a company-wide change in direction and had to go.
Starz’s audience-focus pivot left Counterpart behind
Starz executive Jeffrey Hirsch addressed the decision to end “Counterpart” at the TCA summer press tour shortly after the announcement, placing the blame on the network’s push toward programming aimed at a female audience.
“Counterpart was a great show … but it was a very complicated show, a very male show,” he said (via Deadline). “We had picked that show up and made a two-season commitment before we’d honed in on this premium female strategy.”
Hirsch continued, “When you look at bringing shows back, it really has to serve that core premium female audience and if it doesn’t, we have to find something else.”
Maybe in an alternate reality, “Counterpart” received a third season and breakout success. Here on our own Earth, series creator Justin Marks went in a different direction, co-writing the FX series “Shogun,” which proved successful enough to earn a second season.