Peacock's horror thriller series Teacup gets canceled after one season: Reports

Well, it looks like the Peacock show Teacup, based on Robert McCammon's book Stinger, won't be seeing a second season, according to Variety. Even though it had big names like James Wan and Ian McCulloch backing it up, the horror thriller couldn't get the love it needed to keep going after its first season.

The show came out in October 2024 with a solid eight episodes, but it couldn't stick around in people's minds, even though it got a decent 70% thumbs up from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Teacup tells the story of some folks in the countryside of Georgia facing a weird danger, mixing in a bit of sci-fi with horror.

The thing is, people had all sorts of opinions about it. Some really liked the first few episodes because they were so intense, but then others said it started to feel like every other show out there with the same old tricks. It had some good moments, but the story didn't always flow well and the characters weren't as strong as they could have been. They called it a thriller with a few horror moments.

In the end, that might be what did it in.

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Why did Teacup struggle to keep audiences hooked?

The main reason Teacup got canned was that it couldn’t keep people hooked. At first, it had some seriously spooky moments that had us on the edge of our seats, but it started to lean more into sci-fi, which was an unwelcome shock for the horror fans it brought in with all the creepy promos.

On top of that, the show’s flow and storytelling could’ve been way better. Some episodes felt like they were just killing time without adding anything to the big picture. They threw in an array of side stories about people’s love lives that didn’t fit with the main mystery the characters were all there to solve.

Critics weren’t too happy either, saying that the characters didn’t develop as they should and that the important scenes didn’t have the oomph they needed to hit us in the feels. And let’s talk about the visuals. Now, a show like this needs to look good to keep us invested, but the special effects ended up being a real letdown.

Rama’s Screen called them “cheap and cartoony,” things like the rainbow goo and the alien designs didn’t cut it. Some parts were great, like the over-the-top gory scenes that reminded us of The Thing, but the not-so-great computer graphics ruined the experience. They had an idea but didn’t quite nail the execution.

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Teacup's legacy and what comes next

Even though Teacup had its issues, there were some good things about it. Yvonne Strahovski and Scott Speedman killed it with their acting and the way this show was shot. But sadly, that wasn't enough to keep it from getting canned.

But the folks behind the show, James Wan's Atomic Monster, are still cooking up projects for Peacock, like this new spy show with Simu Liu. It looks like Peacock still has faith in them, even if Teacup didn't turn out to be a hit.

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If you're still interested in checking out Teacup, you can catch it on Peacock.