Quarry: Cancelled by Cinemax; No Season Two

(HBO / Michele K. Short)

It’s official. The Quarry TV show has been cancelled by Cinemax. Michael D. Fuller, who created the post-Vietnam War drama with Graham Gordy, announced the Quarry cancellation on his blog. Apparently, they’ve already tried to shop the TV series to other outlets, but were not successful.

Based on the Max Allan Collins novels, Quarry stars Logan Marshall-Green as Marine Mac Conway, who returns to Memphis in 1972. The Cinemax drama also stars Jodi Balfour, Peter Mullan, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Edoardo Ballerini, and Damon Herriman.

Here’s more on the Quarry cancellation, from Fuller’s blog:

And so, after a protracted and agonizing process, we have final confirmation that Quarry will not be returning to television. There were several factors that contributed to the show’s ultimate fate, but a regime change at HBO and a re-(re?)-branding at Cinemax were of particular significance; we attempted to find another home for the show but were unable to do so. By virtually every metric (ratings, critical response) the show succeeded in all the ways a show needs to for a second season, but, as the erstwhile Head Ball Coach of my beloved Gamecocks was fond of saying, “it is what it is”. TV’s tough and life is tougher, and like the titular character of the show, the series itself was ultimately the victim of a system that is relentlessly unforgiving.

[…]

At the risk of sounding like I’m recording my Dashboard Confessional cover album, I’m gripped w/ a tremendous sense of sadness. Sad that we don’t get to keep telling the stories of Mac and Joni, of Buddy and Naomi (All Damon Herriman and Ann Dowd everything), of Ruth, Marcus, Little Lou, Karl, Moses, The Broker, and all the other characters so vividly and beautifully brought to life by our transcendent cast. (Season 2 was going to be set in 1973 and see Mac fully immersed in The Broker’s network, the arrival of Mac and Arthur’s war buddy Hall Prewitt and the trouble coming w/ him, Buddy asserting his individuality, all w/ the specter of Watergate looming. We actually wrote the entire second season, 6 episodes, before receiving word that Cinemax was going in a different direction w/ their branding and content. Since we didn’t get a Season 2, let’s just speculate as to if Mac actually made it to the other side of the river.)

It’s a sadness I will carry w/ me for the rest of my life, but there’s a tremendous measure of solace in the fact that I had the opportunity to work w/ some of the most immeasurably talented people in the world on something we all believed in and deeply, abidingly cared about. A Memphis-BBQ-platter sized thanks is due to our wonderful cast and crew who made our writing better than it had any business being, and to Max Allan Collins himself, who trusted us w/ a character he’s lived w/ for 40 years: thank you, sir. I hope we didn’t mess it up too badly.

If you watched the show: thank you. If you loved it, spread the word. If you didn’t see it, I can’t quite imagine you read this far (thank you!) but it’s available on iTunes, VUDU, MaxGO, Amazon, etc.

And for the tl;dr of it all, show’s over, and thanks for watching, drink Four Roses Bourbon (Faulkner was a Four Roses man, after all). Here’s the song we wanted to end the first season 1 w/. Feels fitting for today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmIl7hFYR4Y

What do you think? Did you watch the first season? Should Quarry have been cancelled or renewed for a second season on Cinemax?