The crime drama series City on Fire will not return for a second season on Apple TV+.
As broken by Deadline, Apple TV+ has opted to pull the plug on City on Fire after a single, eight-episode season. News of the show’s cancellation comes about a month and a half after Season 1 wrapped up in mid June. Deadline reports that City on Fire wasn’t quite the hit Apple TV+ had hoped for, especially when compared to some of the streamer’s other recent offerings.
City on Fire is based on the 2015 novel of the same name by Garth Risk Hallberg. To that end, the show’s first and only season covers the entire arc of the book. So, it did not leave viewers on a cliffhanger in that respect. However, Apple TV+ ordered the adaptation as a drama series, not a limited series. Furthermore, the show did plant seeds for a potential second season in its finale. Notably, the live-action series continuing the story beyond what’s in the book would not have been unprecedented. (A recent example of a television adaptation doing just that is Prime Video’s Good Omens.)
What is City on Fire About?
Created for TV by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, City on Fire premiered on Apple TV+ this past May. An official synopsis reads as follows: “A college student [Samantha Yeung, played by Chase Sui Wonders] is shot in Central Park on July 4, 2003. The investigation connects a series of mysterious citywide fires, the downtown music scene, and a wealthy uptown real estate family fraying under the strain of the many secrets they keep.”
In addition to Wonders, City on Fire stars Wyatt Oleff, Jemima Kirke, Nico Tortorella, Ashley Zukerman, Xavier Clyde, Max Milner, Alexandra Doke, Omid Abtahi, Kathleen Munroe, John Cameron Mitchell, Alexander Pineiro, and Michael Tow. The aforementioned Schwartz and Savage wrote all eight episodes of the series. Jesse Peretz, Haifaa al-Mansour, and Liz Garbus served as directors.
City on Fire Season 1 is currently streaming on Apple TV+.