Lucky Hank’s name was always pretty steeped in irony, given that the Bob Odenkirk-starring series—Odenkirk’s first major effort after the end of his celebrated run on Better Call Saul—was about a man who ostensibly had everything he could want in life, and yet was still kind of a miserable bastard. Now, the title of the AMC series carries some extra super bonus irony, though, because the show has just been canceled after a single season on the network.
This is per Variety, which reports that the show, which also starred Mireille Enos, Cedric Yarbough, Diedrich Bader, Olivia Scott Welch, Sara Amini, and Suzanne Cryer, won’t be moving forward. But in a nice, “Please keep working with us” kind of way; we remain endlessly fascinated by which shows merit a “We’re really sorry we canceled you!” notice from their networks, and Lucky Hank—which was developed by Paul Lieberstein and Aaron Zelman, from the novel Straight Man by Richard Russo—got a doozy of a mea culpa from AMC to accompany its cancellation:
We’re proud of Lucky Hank and thankful for the work of everyone who brought this unique, playful and deeply human show to viewers, from the talented creative team to our partners at Sony and, of course, Bob, Mireille and the entire cast and crew. Unfortunately, we are not able to proceed with a second season, but we are glad these eight episodes exist on AMC+ and will continue to find new fans – or be seen again by viewers who come back to spend more time with Hank, Lily and the entertaining cast of characters at Railton College.
The series starred Odenkirk—whose most recent TV appearance was a memorable guest star spot on the most recent season of The Bear, and who’s up for Best Actor in a drama for the fifth time at the Emmys this year—as a college professor whose professional and family life both begin to unravel.