Real reason Apple TV cancelled Jason Clarke’s ‘Last Frontier’ after just one season
Jason Clarke-led thriller, 'The Last Frontier', has been officially canceled after just one season. Apple TV pulled the plug on the 10-episode series earlier, with multiple reports hinting at the mixed critical and fan response as the reason behind the move. The series follows Clarke's Frank Remnic, the lone US marshal in charge of the barrens of Alaska. Things go south when a prison transport crash sets a string of inmates free.
The logline reads, "Tasked with protecting the town he’s vowed to keep safe, [Remnick] begins to suspect the crash wasn’t an accident, but the first step of a well-crafted plan with far-reaching and devastating implications." The cast includes Haley Bennett, Simone Kessell, Dallas Goldtooth, Dominic Cooper, Tait Blum, and Alfre Woodard. Jon Bokenkamp and Richard D’Ovidio created the show and served as executive producers alongside director Sam Hargrave. Laura Benson, Glenn Kessler, Albert Kim, with Clarke also executive-produced.
Season one premiered on Apple TV+ on Oct. 10 and comprised 10 episodes. 'The Last Frontier' opened to 46% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Variety's review read, "An entertaining bait-and-switch” in the first episode, the show “gets bogged down in a serialized plot that’s more convoluted and generic than the simple pleasures of maniacs running amok and small-town cops chasing them down."
THR had another mixed review, saying, "In a television landscape absolutely parched for escapism, The Last Frontier sounds like a recipe for fun. The only problem is that after a pilot that hints at dozens of ways that The Last Frontier could be an adrenalized thrill ride — a vaccination against the avalanche of self-important serial killer dramas forcing your friendly neighborhood television critic to consider Prozac — The Last Frontier turns out not to be very much fun at all."
Fans took to social media to react to the news. "It seemed like a one-season show," one fan wrote. This was seconded by another who said, "I honestly couldn’t get through the first episode." The negative comments trickled in, with a fan adding, "First couple of episodes were really good, then it petered out."
Earlier, Clarke spoke about his involvement in the project. "I came in pretty early, when they had quite a few scripts already written — seven or eight, I think — and they were looking for someone to play the role," he told Cowboys Indians. "They still hadn’t worked out where it was going to shoot. They were breaking the story on the other two [scripts]. But before we shot, I read the whole lot. Which is actually pretty rare nowadays. It’s one of those things that really helped in terms of knowing what I was going to have to do, knowing the size and the scope of the story, and also what I was committing to. All those things sealed the deal for me, really. As well as the people involved."
'The Last Frontier' is streaming on Apple TV+.
