The cancellation of Latine-led TV shows continues with Roselyn Sánchez’s Fantasy Island. According to multiple sources including Deadline, Fox will not renew the series for a third season. The news came a day after the season 2 finale.
A sequel to the original 1977 series starring Ricardo Montalbán as the mysterious Mr. Roarke, Fantasy Island followed the story with his grandniece, Elena Roarke (Sánchez) who continued her uncle’s mission to help guests of the island’s resort fulfill their fantasies.
“We were very pleased with Fantasy Island’s fun and escapist creative, which we had hoped would gain strong traction among viewers,” Fox said in a statement. “We’d also like to thank Fantasy Island’s cast, led by Roselyn Sánchez, Kiara Barnes, and John Gabriel Rodriquez, crew and executive producers Liz Craft, Sarah Fain and Anne Clements for their partnership on the series.”
The loss of Fantasy Island and the jobs that it provided our communities, comes at a time when the Writers Guild of America is in full swing asking for a better living wage and compensation for their work. And it’s hard to ignore the devastating feeling that representation is continuously being sacrificed to save money, when shows that focus on our communities are being axed and our writers are out on the streets asking for a fair wage and not to be replaced by AI.
Fantasy Island joins a handful of Latine-led series axed in only the last year like Gordita Chronicles, Freeridge, Promised Land, and the National Treasure series. Those shows were only given a single season before they were canceled. This, of course, doesn’t count the other Latine-led shows that have been canceled since 2019, including Rebelde, One Day at a Time, Gentefied, On My Block, Diary of a Future President, The Baker and the Beauty, The Expanding Universe of Ashley Garcia, Mr. Iglesias, and more.
Here’s hoping Lopez vs. Lopez, who just wrapped up its first season, doesn’t get canceled too.