The HBO Max animated fantasy dramedy Infinity Train may have already come to an untimely end after its third season, according to HITC. Rumors surrounding the show’s unfortunate fate began circulating online on February 9, the day the show’s creator Owen Dennis (Regular Show) posted picture carousel on his Instagram of excerpts from a commemorative yearbook delivered to him by Infinity Train production assistant Brandon Furuta. The front cover of the tome appeared to convey that 2020 was the series’ final year of production.
While there have been no official announcements from HBO Max higher-ups confirming the show’s conclusion, the possibility of cancellation has been weighing on Dennis’s mind since the summer of 2020. Immediately following the third season’s debut on the streamer, Dennis told io9 that due to the absence of an assured opportunity to develop future seasons, his original collaborators on Infinity Train moved on to other projects. “The show is at risk of not being renewed,” he confided, via io9. Dennis continued: “We built such an amazing team of people and my heart aches thinking about not being able to work with them again. We’ve pitched other seasons of the show, but there’s trepidation over the subject matter… and being afraid that kids won’t watch it or relate to it because of that…. Therefore, the way to get this stuff made is to show that adults, teens and kids all watch it, and that they watch it on HBO Max.”
The thematic subject matter to which Dennis refers is significantly more mature than the anodyne bromides common to popular children’s animated programming. In her review of the third (and potentially final) season of Infinity Train, entertainment reporter Petrana Radulovic (Mashable) noted that the show refused to shy away from sophisticated ideas about life and love: “Season 3 is the darkest and most complex story so far, with two leading characters grappling with toxic mindsets and trauma, interwoven with themes of codependency… It’s culmination of the show’s working parts, the most ambitious and satisfying season yet,” via Polygon.
Even though Infinity Train‘s future as a television series is shrouded in uncertainty, Dennis allegedly does not want to leave the show’s world behind entirely. Towards the end of his io9 interview, he pitched concept for a feature film that would delve into the titular locomotive’s ancient history, as well as a potential plan for a comic book series that would not only use the information contained in his animated series as a foundation for a franchise-wide canon but also demonstrate a global perspective. “The train can show up anywhere, but everyone we ever meet on the train speaks English and comes from a Western country… It should be available to the mental, moral and personal issues of everyone around the world,” Dennis asserted, via io9.
All three seasons of Infinity Train can be streamed through HBO Max, priced at $14.99 month. The WarnerMedia streaming service recently announced a new slate of animated originals, including a Scooby-Doo prequel series starring and executive produced by Mindy Kaling (The Office, Never Have I Ever), and a two-season renewal order for the slice-of-life comedy Close Enough from Regular Show creator J.G. Quintel (The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack). With regard to live-action series, HBO Max recently abandoned pre-production on a thriller pilot titled Red Bird Lane and renewed the critically-acclaimed dark comedy series Search Party for a fifth season.
The platform’s sister broadcaster HBO has publicized its casting announcements for a television adaptation of the post-apocalyptic action-adventure video game The Last of Us, cemented an April premiere date for new limited mystery series starring and executive produced by Kate Winslet (Titanic) titled Mare of Easttown, and confirmed the long-awaited return of one of the channel’s most popular programs, the award-winning drama In Treatment, in May 2021.