When you have a TV series that’s based on a pre-existing set of novels, audiences aren’t going to be completely happy until the entirety of the source material has been exhausted. FX is well aware of that, and so it comes with little surprise, but much fanfare, that the network execs have decided to renew The Strain for Season 3. We’re going to assume that The Master wasn’t the puppeteer guiding FX’s actions.
According to TVLine, the renewal was announced at the TCA press event, and comes just as Season 2 of The Strain is starting to heat up. The premiere aired less than a month ago and took viewers back into the past, giving Abraham Setrakian’s quest an origin story of sorts. Three episodes later, and we’ve got explosions, luchadors and monster suicides. I can’t imagine that audiences would have reacted kindly to FX has they decided to cancel The Strain before taking on the rest of the story arcs laid out by showrunner Carlton Cuse and creators/novel authors Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. We need to watch Kevin Durand’s Fet kicking ass for years to come.
Thank goodness FX is almost always willing to keep shows on the air despite not having massive ratings. (Terriers is still a tender wound, guys.) Throughout Season 1, The Strain usually pulled in well over 2 million viewers during its live airings, but those numbers have definitely dipped in Season 2. That’s not so hard to understand, since Sunday nights are arguably the best night for quality TV, even in the summer. Plus, The Strain has been doubling its initial ratings when Live+7 has been accounted for, and its stellar 1.8 rating in the 18-49 demographic has to make FX happy.
Cuse & Co. have previously stated that they’re looking to keep the show on the air for three to five seasons in order to best tell the story of these ragtag vampire hunters and their endless attempts to save the world. You gotta love a series that has an endgame in place and has no intentions of stretching things too thin.
It wasn’t just horror-related series that FX was busy with at TCA. They also put in a 10-episode series order for the Louie companion series Better Things, co-created by Louis C.K. and Pamela Adlon, the latter of which will star as a single actress struggling to raise three daughters. And Archer fans will no longer be able to see new episodes of the show on FX, as the hilarious animated stalwart is moving to FXX, and it’ll be paired with the new series Cassius and Clay, a post-apocalyptic animated comedy starring Childrens Hospital’s Lake Bell and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Kaitlin Olson.
Expect The Strain Season 3 to hit FX in the summer of 2016.
