Rian Johnson’s TV whodunit Poker Face has officially been cancelled by Peacock after just two seasons, though the director has said he will now attempt to save the show by shopping it to another streamer — with a completely different actor in the leading role.
Any future plans for the show will no longer feature Natasha Lyonne leading the cast as gumshoe Charlie Cale. Instead, Johnston has cast none other than Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage in the same role, though Lyonne will stay attached to the project as an executive producer.
From there, The Hollywood Reporter reports that Johnson wants to have a new actor take over the helm as Charlie every two seasons — you know, if the show gets picked up again, of course.
The show’s cancellation comes just four months after the second season of the series came to an end. Though it was one of Peacock’s most watched shows this season and the buzz around it continued to be positive, ratings data suggests that its sophomore year didn’t perform as well.
THR’s report also notes that the show was expensive to produce, and an easier choice to cancel as it was outsourced to MRC Television by NBCUniversal, rather than an internal production.
“We’ve been germinating this next move together since writing the season two finale,” Johnson and Lyonne revealed in a recent statement about the decision to try to keep the show running elsewhere. “We love our Poker Face and this is the perfect way to keep it rolling. Give us a beat and we may just see Charlie Cale again down that open highway.”
Poker Face’s first two seasons remain available to stream on Peacock.
Image credit: Gilbert Flores/WWD via Getty Images
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.
