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Syfy has canceled Nightflyers after a single season

Syfy has canceled Nightflyers after a single season

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The series showrunner had envisioned other stories set in the same world

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Image: Syfy

The Syfy channel has canceled its space horror series Nightflyers after a single season, according to The Wrap, just a couple of months after the series aired on the network.

The 10-episode show is based on a novella by Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin, as the Syfy channel prominently splashed across its marketing in the lead-up to the series. Martin’s novella follows an expedition to an alien starship, during which the scientists and engineers realize their ship is home to a malevolent presence. The series, a slow burn of a horror story, largely asked whether humanity deserves to be saved.

The Syfy channel aired the show in its entirety over the course of two weeks last December, streaming the episodes online for cable subscribers right after they aired. According to Deadline, the ratings for the series were “pretty modest,” and the network essentially opted to leave the series as a one-off.

Its cancelation cuts short what could have been a larger science fiction franchise for the Syfy channel. Nightflyers showrunner Jeff Buhler told The Verge last year that he wanted to tackle other stories in the Thousand Worlds universe, where Martin set numerous other stories. Buhler says viewers are “beginning to desire stories that have more complexity and less-defined borders. You don’t necessarily have to have a story and then the sequel, and tell everything in a linear fashion,” and that such a large sandbox is an appealing story to adapt. Given Martin’s fame and the many other projects he’s working on, there are plenty of reasons for Syfy to still pick up another Thousand Worlds story for separate adaptation, but at the moment, it doesn’t look like there will be any officially linked Nightflyers franchise.