David Farnor | On 12, May 2018

Fox has excommunicated The Exorcist from its TV line-up, with the show given the official chop this week.

More than four decades after the Academy Award-nominated film, The Exorcist spin-off series is a thriller following two very different priests tackling one family’s case of demonic possession. Father Tomas Ortega (Alfonso Herrera) is the new face of the Catholic Church: progressive, ambitious and compassionate. Father Marcus (Ben Daniels) is everything Father Tomas is not: relentless, abrasive and utterly consumed by his mission – and he constantly butts heads with his adversary within the church, Father Bennett (Kurt Egyiawan). Caught in the middle of the two priests is the Rance family, who are members of Tomas’ parish. On the surface, they’re a normal, American family, but all is not as it seems in this household. The mother, Angela (Geena Davis), begs Tomas for help, unwittingly setting the naïve young priest on a collision course with Marcus.

The series was created by Jeremy Slater and executive produced by Slater, Emmy Award nominee Rolin Jones, Rupert Wyatt, Roy Lee, James Robinson, David Robinson and Barbara Wall. It premiered back in 2016, with Syfy UK holding the first-run rights on British soil. Amazon Prime Video, meanwhile, has since snapped up the second-window rights, with Season 1 arriving on the subscription service last October.

“This smart expansion of William Friedkin’s movie is genuinely scary television,” we wrote in our review.

The show’s second season aired in the US, and on Syfy in the UK, around the same time, opening a new chapter in the franchise, as Tomas and Marcus head out of Chicago and on the road to search out evil. They are led to Andrew Kim (John Cho), a former child psychologist who runs a group home for five at-risk foster children on a secluded private island off the coast of Seattle. When one of the children under Andrew’s care is targeted by a powerful force, the two priests brace for another battle.

Season 2, however, failed to find traction, becoming Fox’s lowest-rated programme in the US for the year, averaging 1.32 million total viewers. As a result, Fox has decided not to renewed the show for further episodes. Season 1, though, is still on Amazon Prime Video to catch up with, and its second and final season is expected to arrive later this year. Click here to read why you should catch up.

The Exorcist: Season 1 is available to watch online on Amazon Prime Video as part of a Prime membership or a £5.99 monthly subscription.

 

Where can I buy or rent The Exorcist online in the UK?

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