La Brea: Cancelled? Season Three Likely to End NBC Series with Just Six Episodes

(Photo by: Sarah Enticknap/NBC)

La Brea has been renewed for a third season, but the news may be less positive than we knew. Deadline reports that the NBC series has only been given a six-episode order for season three, and that would likely end the series. Filming of the half-dozen episodes will begin in March in Australia.

Starring Natalie Zea, Eoin Macken, Jon Seda, Nicholas Gonzalez, Chiké Okonkwo, Zyra Gorecki, Jack Martin, Veronica St. Clair, Rohan Mirchandaney, Lily Santiago, Josh McKenzie, Tonantzin Carmelo, and Michelle Vergara Moore, the La Brea series follows what happens after a sink hole opens up in Los Angeles and takes a group to 10,000 BC when they fall through it.

With the possibility of WGA, DGA, and SAG-AFTRA strikes looming for this summer, the shortened season is part of NBC’s strategy to bank programming for the 2023-24 season. Other networks are likely to follow suit with similar plans.

The following was revealed about the plan for La Brea on NBC:

I hear NBC approached the cast of La Brea about doing a short third season. Because the series regulars have a 10-episode minimum guarantee (meaning that they have to be paid at least 10 episodic fees a season regardless of how many episodes are produced), the network and sister studio Universal Television asked the cast to reduce their contractual minimum guarantees to six episodes, sources said. In exchange, I hear the actors were offered a release from the show after Season 3 — which they took — making them available to take other jobs. (A typical broadcast series regular contract is for six seasons.)

This means that La Brea would most likely end with Season 3. (There a small chance that the show could continue beyond that with a new family played by a new cast.)

What do you think? Are you sad to hear that La Brea will likely end with its third season? Would you watch a fourth season, with a new family at its center?