Hard Sun Gone

I was wondering the other day about the BBC series Hard Sun, which was underwhelming but very hyped-up due to its Luther connections and ended with something of a cliffhanger. Its been over a year since the season aired and the second should have aired by now- well, mystery solved, the series was canceled back in August, which would likely have been when the second season was due filming. Its funny how I was moaning the other day about films that deliberately  leave things open for a sequel (almost every big-budget film seems to have a trilogy in mind) and here’s an example of a television series suffering the same. Not that any show really should have repeatability in mind, but what’s the point of a show like Hard Sun ever being aired again if its conclusion is left hanging in the air?

I’m sure the show probably had its fans, and even as someone who had mixed feelings about it (as I recall, it was a bit all over the place trying to tick too many boxes), I invested some time watching it through only to be left frustrated by that teasing ‘ending’ to season one, and now it’s doubly frustrating that whatever the big intentions or wider story was, we’ll never likely know. For every show that runs five or more seasons with a deep and satisfying story, there are too many that falter and fail to get the audience to run their course. I think its the dark curse of Babylon 5, one of the first high-profile shows to go with a multi-season storyline (and indeed B5 barely got through to an ending, which as it was was pretty handicapped by outside circumstances).