Well, it's official. After three seasons, HBO Max has given ballroom competition series Legendary the chop. The news dropped shortly after they canceled FBoy Island after two seasons.
via Deadline:
Similar to the Nikki Glaser-fronted dating series, Legendary is a relatively expensive show for a streaming service that pulled out of original unscripted orders earlier this summer. At the time, the streamer noted that while it wasn’t ordering any new unscripted originals, it would consider renewing existing shows but FBoy Island and Legendary are more expensive than the David Zaslav-run company would like to spend on unscripted shows.
It’s also a blow for diversity in unscripted programming as Legendary was one of the most inclusive reality shows on air and praised by GLAAD.
The show was fronted by MC Dashaun Wesley with judges Leiomy Maldonado, Jameela Jamil, Law Roach and Keke Palmer, who replaced judge Megan Thee Stallion after two seasons.
The first season premiered in May 2020, the second season launched in May 2021 and the third season aired in May 2022.
It was produced by Queer Eye producer Scout Productions. It was exec produced by David Collins, Michael Williams, Rob Eric, Jane Y. Mun, Josh Greenberg, Renata Lombardo and Shant Tutunjian.
Legendary features a group of voguing houses, each featuring five performers and a leader called the house mother. The teams compete in a competition that documents a themed ball every episode from start to finish. Throughout each episode, we learn more about each house and their performers as they tell us their moving and inspirational backstories.
Fans, as well as judge Leiomy, and dancers Dro Tisci and Kitten Heel took to Twitter to express their sadness over the show's cancelation.
The Jasmine Brand was the first to report this news last month, but Deadline and other mainstream Hollywood trades made it official.
It's unfortunate that HBO would cancel such a good show that gave QPOC a face on mainstream television, but if enough people aren't watching, shows like Legendary will continue to get canceled.
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