Fox launched three new drama series this season – The Big Leap, Our Kind of People and The Cleaning Lady.
Fall launches The Big Leap and Our Kind of People were both designed for shorter episode runs – the former, for instance, wrapped up its 11 episode freshman run at the end of last year and Our Kind of People was handed 12 episodes.
Fox is now working out whether to bring them back for second seasons.
President of Entertainment Michael Thorn told Deadline, “I think we’ll make decisions in the late spring. Creatively we’re extremely pleased with both shows, both have really strong creative teams and really specific, relevant, resonant storylines and there are a lot of factors that go into how we measure success.”
He added that it will look at all of the data that comes from delayed viewing as well as story opportunities.
Both The Big Leap and Our Kind of People launched to high expectations, with the ballet drama-comedy drawing parallels to Fox’s breakout hit Glee, and the soapy Our Kind of People, executive produced by Lee Daniels, evoking comparisons to the Lee-co-created Empire, which had a very successful run on the network. However, linear ratings for both shows have been soft.
They were joined by midseason launch The Cleaning Lady – based on an Argentinean series – earlier this month. Thorn said that he was pleased with its early performance – holding in its second week with “strong” delayed viewing.
“We’re creatively pleased with all three shows, and just want to take a step back and see what’s best for us as we go forward,” he added.
Elsewhere, Thorn also gave an update on the status of Kyle Killen’s pilot The Last Police.
The adaptation of Ben Winters’ sci-fi mystery novel The Last Policeman, is written, directed and exec produced by the Lone Star and Awake creator via his Chapter Eleven production banner.
The Last Police follows a small-town police detective, who, as an asteroid races toward an apocalyptic collision with Earth, believes she’s been chosen to save humanity, while her cynical partner can’t decide what he’ll enjoy more: her delusional failure, or the end of the world itself. It stars Blu Hunt and Reno Wilson as leads.
Thorn said the pilot was in the middle of the post process now. “It’s too soon to say what the timeline is. Kyle did a great job on the pilot and we’re just trying to figure out next steps on both the pilot and in any kind of decision making,” he added.
