FX Renews ‘The Strain’ for Third Season (original) (raw)

FX is staying in business with The Strain.

The cable network announced Friday that it has renewed the vampire drama for a third season.

The renewal will take the Corey Stoll starrer from Guillermo del Toro and Carlton Cuse into the same number of seasons as there are books in the Chuck Hogan series.

For their part, Cuse and del Toro have said they are looking at the series for either a three- or five-season run, with season one covering the first book in the trilogy, with the jury still out on if the final two books should be one season each or split into multiple runs. There was no immediate word from FX if season three would be its last.

“Guillermo and Carlton have delivered two thrilling seasons of The Strain that are captivating and visually arresting, doing justice to the original novel trilogy and meeting fans’ high expectations in the process,” said FX Networks original programming president Eric Schrier. “We’re excited to see them carry this powerful story into a third season on FX.”

The drama returned for its second season down sharply from its freshman finale, with 780,000 total viewers among adults 18-49 and 1.66 million viewers. However, when factoring in seven days of delayed viewing, the drama ranks as the eighth-most-watched series on cable among viewers in the coveted adults under 50 demo with 1.8 million.

The series is part of a roster of original dramas at FX that includes American Horror Story,Kurt Sutter’s upcoming Bastard Executioner, The Americans, Fargo, Tyrant and upcoming anthology American Crime Story.

The Strain renewal was part of a slate of FX announcements to come out of the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour that also included a series pickup for comedy Better Things, starring Pamela Adlon and co-created by Louis C.K., as well as the animated addition of Cassius and Clay for FXX, which will also be the new home for Archer.

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