“Wild Cards” gets its overdue renewal

After a prolonged pause, the CW network has decided the obvious: “Wild Cards” (shown here) will be back for a second season.
That won’t be until 2025, but it will be for 13 episodes, compared to 10 for the first year.
The light-hearted crime show did relatively well in the ratings, but the network was noncommittal about its future. The news finally came two months after the show’s first season ended and a week after the network set its fall schedule.
In recent years the network, under new ownership, canceled most of its shows, many of them sleek superhero tales. It went for less-expensive shows; for scripted ones, that meant ones that were also made for a foreign network, splitting the costs.
Some of those wobbled. The Canadian “Spencer Sisters” wasn’t renewed, the English “Everyone Else Burns” was pulled after two episodes, the Canadian “Sight Unseen” is currently struggling at 9 p.m. Wednesdays.
But several Canadian shows have done adequately and been renewed, including “Sullivan’s Crossing,” “Son of a Critch” and this one.
“’Wild Cards’ is a great example of what a partnership can really do for everybody,” Brad Schwartz, the PBS president, told the Television Critics Association in February.
He said the script – a down-on-his-luck cop, reluctantly working with a glamorous grifter – was something “we loved, (but) there wasn’t budget to cast” it well. So CW added the extra money to cast Giacomo Gianniotti and Vanessa Morgan.
Both are Canadian, but have international roots – he’s an Italian native, her father is from Tanzania – and U.S. credits: He was Dr. DeLuca on “Grey’s Anatomy” and she was Toni Topaz, a tough gang leader on CW’s “Riverdale.”
“Wild Cards” drew favorable reviews and decent ratings. A typical hour was seen by 523,000 people live, including 60.000 in the 18-49 age group,
Those are small numbers overall – CBS has shows with more than 12 times as many viewers – but big for a network trying to re-emerge. Among CW shows, “Wild Cards” was No. 1 in overall ratings and No. 3 in 18-49, behind two carryovers from the old days – “All American” and “Walker.”