News

Peacock apparently was tired of sitting on the sidelines watching broadcast handing out surprising cancellations and decided to get in on the action with a pair of cancellations for two of its own shows.

Peacock has decided not to move forward with a third season of its hit comedy Based on a True Story, canceling the show roughly five months after season 2’s release in November 2024. A move that is both shocking and so disappointing.

Based on a True Story starred Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina as a married couple struggling to keep their head above water who decide to use their love of true crime podcasts to launch their own podcast detailing the murders of local serial killer, the Westside Ripper… who just so happens to be the couple’s plumber Matt (Tom Bateman). Debuting in 2023, the show opened to rave reviews and quickly secured a second season, which...

Peacock has closed the book on Based on a True Story, cancelling the true-crime satire after two seasons, TVLine has confirmed. The streamer has also cancelled the sports comedy Mr. Throwback, starring Adam Pally and Stephen Curry, after one season. (Our sister site Variety first reported the news.)

The news comes five months after the release of True Story’s second season, which dropped in its entirety in November. The cancellation caps its run at 16 episodes.

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Season 2 of Peacock's Based on a True Story has wrapped up, but many fans are still wondering if Season 3 is in the cards.

The Peacock series' second season had an incredibly eventful finale.

It’s revealed that Sara Paxton’s Paige, the sister of Natalie Dyer’s Chloe Lake (the first victim audiences see die in Season 1), is the copycat killer.

Read full article on The Direct.

Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Based on a True story season 2.

Based on a True Story stars Melissa Fumero and Sara Paxton address Drew's identity, season 2's killer, and the finale's cliffhanger. Fumero and Paxton joined season 2 of the Peacock series to play new characters. Fumero plays Drew, a single mother who becomes friends with Kaley Cuoco's Ava Bartlett, while Paxton plays Paige, the sister of the deceased Chloe Lake (Natalia Dyer), who was murdered by Matt Pierce (Tom Bateman) in season 1. Drew is secretly Matt's ex-wife and Paige is the West Side Ripper copycat killer revealed in Based on a True Story season 2's ending.

While speaking with Screen Rant's Grant Hermanns, Fumero and Paxton shared their reactions to learning their respective characters' game-changing secrets. Fumero discussed how her role as Amy Santiago in Brooklyn Nine-Nine influenced the creative decision to seemingly reveal that Drew is a police officer,...

Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Based on a True Story season 2.

Based on a True Story season 2 ends with a massive betrayal and tantalizing cliffhangers that set up a potential season 3. After Based on a True Story season 1's ending, season 2 begins with Ava Bartlett (Kaley Cuoco) giving birth as she and her husband, Nathan (Chris Messina) try to move forward with their lives. This proves to be challenging when the West Side Ripper serial killer, Matt Pierce (Tom Bateman), gets engaged to Ava's sister, Tory Thompson (Liana Liberato).

Meanwhile, a new string of murders has begun at the hands of a West Side Ripper copycat killer. Based on a True Story's characters work to discover the copycat killer's identity before it is too late. Their investigation is complicated by Matt working to maintain his sobriety and to curb his darker impulses, along with Ava making a new friend,...

Peacock’s Based on a True Story unmasks a new serial killer — and exposes a killer inside someone close to Ava and Nathan Bartlett — in the true-crime sendup’s deliciously twisted sophomore run.

The Season 2 finale reveals that the copycat killer is none other than Sara Paxton’s Paige, the sister of Westside Ripper victim Chloe Lake (Natalia Dyer), whose brutal murder played out in the series’ very first episode. Paige traps Ava and Nathan in the Lipinski Sisters’ podcast studio, and she’s prepared to kill them for profiting off of Chloe’s death, before Matt shows up in the knick of time,...

Did “Based on a True Story” need a second season? Arguably no, but credit where credit is due: Season 2 the Peacock series — now led by Annie Weisman — is significantly more confident, entertaining, and batshit (respectfully) than the first, so when the inevitable cliffhanger rolls around, it actually feels earned.

Season 2, Episode 8, “This Week’s Guest” starts with Ava (Kaley Cuoco) and Nathan (Chris Messina) held hostage at a podcast studio by the as-yet-unidentified Copycat Killer. This is a show with so few characters that I was genuinely stumped as to the murderer’s identity, and thrilled by the reveal that its Chloe Lake’s (Natalia Dyer) sister (Sarah Paxton) — whose sister was killed by Matt (Tom Bateman), the West Side Ripper.

It’s a turn very much of a piece with the rest of the season, which smartly pulls away from Ava, Nathan, and Matt’s hit podcast and its dubious ethics.

The ending of Based on a True Story season 2 hinged on the confrontation between Ava, Nathan, Matt, and the copycat killer. Matt, a serial killer known as the Westside Ripper, had essentially hung his boots up and was ready to marry Tory, Ava’s sister. But the emergence of a copycat killer had put him on edge. He tried to avoid looking into it and focus on Tory and himself, but Ava’s true crime-addicted mind brought him back into the mix, thereby making a confrontation between him and his supposed fan an inevitable outcome of this whole affair. Matt wanted to leave Los Angeles after Tory killed his wife, Olivia, and abducted his son, Ollie, with the intention of forming a new family. However, that’s when Ava and Nathan essentially got kidnapped by the Lipinski sisters, and the couple were forced by them (they were literally zip-tied to...

Plot: Follows a realtor, a former tennis star and a plumber who seize a unique opportunity to capitalize on America’s obsession with true crime

Review: The only thing that is getting more tiresome than true-crime series are the projects that try to develop a twist on the already twist-heavy genre. While adaptations of actual criminal cases and murderers have not slowed down in recent years, there has been a new crop of fictional tales focused on average people obsessed with true crime and involved in the investigation themselves. At the same time, few have come close to the brilliance of Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, which has not stopped podcast-oriented copycats from popping up on other streamers. The latest addition is Peacock’s Based on a True Story. The series from producers Michael Costigan and Jason Bateman boasts the star power of Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina...