After a three-season run, TNT drama Murder in the First has been canceled, Variety confirmed on Tuesday.
Murder in the First was an anthology drama series created by Steven Bochco and Eric Lodal, which first aired in 2014. It was set in San Francisco and starred Taye Diggs and Kathleen Robertson as homicide detectives. Ian Anthony Dale, Raphael Sbarge, Lombardo Boyar, Currie Graham and Mimi Kirkland also starred.
In the anthology, a single murder case proceeded for a full season, each episode dissecting a crime from its carrying out to the investigation, arrest and trial. Bochco and Lodal executive produced alongside Thomas Schlamme, who directed the pilot.
Bochco previously attempted at a serialized crime drama, Murder One, which aired on ABC from 1995 to 1997; this show and Murder in the First can be likened to one another. Brian Lowry compared the two shows in a piece for Variety in 2014.
“The previewed hours establish the series as crisp and watchable, while perhaps shrewdly shifting and expanding the earlier show’s lens from defense attorneys to the detectives assigned the case,” Lowry wrote.
Murder in the First’s third and final season, which drew to a close Sept. 4, averaged 1.6 million total viewers in Live+same day numbers, hitting its season high.