SYFY’s Blood Drive Canceled After One Season

Syfy has canceled Blood Drive just after one season. Debuting just this summer in June, the TV series is set in a dystopian and distant future following the catastrophe of the Great Fracking Quake that resulted in the United States literally being divided into two massive chunks of land via a giant ravine called “the Scar.” The physical crack which transcends the Mississippi river route is exploited by a company called Heart Enterprises to gain control over American politics, society, and the economy but their actions result in further environmental damage resulting to water scarcity and rise of gasoline prices. With basic necessities growing more and more difficult to access, people have resorted to using human blood to fuel their cars.


Maneuvering in the premise is LAPD officer Arthur Bailey (Alan Ritchson) is then forced to partner up with Grace D’Argento (Christina Ochoa), as they take part in a death race hosted by Julian Slink (Colin Cunningham) who apparently is a secret Heart Enterprise employee. As the season progressed the two leads’ personal stories get unraveled as they slowly discover how the monopolizing mega corporation had something to do with their own respective life tragedies.


The news was delivered by series creator himself, James Roland, via a lengthy blog post announcing that the show will not return for a second outing. That said it sounds like he does not have any hard feelings against Syfy or its parent company, NBC, for its decision to pull the plug on the show just after one outing, although he has empathized with fans who are distraught of the cancelation:

“Unfortunately, your suspicions are correct. Syfy has canceled Blood Drive after one season. If this news makes you angry or sad, you’re not alone. I found out not too long ago, but have been trying to think of a way to tell you guys since I felt it was up to me to let the fans know. Ultimately I decided to wait until after the final episode aired so the news did not taint your experience. It simply didn’t seem right to burst the bubble so early, especially with how the last episode plays out. We always planned for a season two, but now that the future of the show is uncertain the final scenes seem so much more … final.”


Further, the writer has not totally closed his doors on Blood Drive, teasing that there might be more of the show down the long road:

“There’s definitely no season two in the immediate future, but I remain cautiously optimistic there’s more story to tell in this world. NBC|Universal owns the show so when the time comes I’ll approach them with some ideas and we’ll see what they think.”

Despite generally positive reviews from critics citing its fresh narrative and unexpected story trajectory, the show just did not connect with the general viewing public resulting to its low ratings. This is mainly the cause for Syfy’s decision to cancel the series altogether. That said, Blood Drive arguably had the potential to flourish as a good sci-fi option in the TV spectrum now if it was given more opportunity to develop.