'Interrogation' Canceled By CBS All Access, Becoming Only The Fourth Scripted Show On The Service To Get The Boot

*Grabs you by the lapels, slams you down into a chair, shines a bright light in your eyes*

So, where were you on November 4, 2020? At home, huh? A likely story. Got an alibi for that? We got a tip that someone canceled the CBS All Access series Interrogation on that day. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you? No? Well, I guess we'll see about that. I'm going to go get something to eat from the vending machine – you sit in here for a while and think it over.

Yes folks, it's true: Interrogation is no more. The CBS All Access series has met its end, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The show starred Peter Sarsgaard (Green Lantern, Shattered Glass), David Strathairn (The Bourne Ultimatum, Good Night and Good Luck), Kyle Gallner (Veronica Mars, Smallville), and Kodi Smit-McPhee (Let Me In, The Road), and it was an experimental, non-linear mystery series which was based on the conviction of a young man who was charged and convicted with murdering his own mother. Gallner played the accused young man, Straithairn played his suburbanite father, Smit-McPhee played a troubled homeless teen, and Sarsgaard played an officer trying to solve the case.

The big selling point here was that viewers could watch the episodes out of order, putting audience members in the position of a detective who could piece together different parts of the story at their own discretion. It was an interesting concept for a streaming series and a way for ViacomCBS, a company not known for taking risks, to at least push the envelope a little in terms of narrative experimentation on the digital side of things. This becomes just the fourth scripted show to be canceled by the streaming service, after Tell Me a Story, One Dollar, and Strange Angel.

I don't have any inside info about why exactly the show was given the boot, but I do know that CBS All Access is being rebranded to Paramount+ next year. Maybe executives wanted to wipe away some of their underperforming titles on the service and put on a winning front for that relaunch.

"Anders Weidemann, John Mankiewicz, and Fabrik Entertainment's unique approach to exploring an unsolved true-crime in Interrogation allowed allowed the audience to follow their own investigative path of evidence and suspecting characters throughout a 10-episode arc," CBS All Access head of programming Julie McNamara said in a statement. "They led an amazing team of writers, directors and cast, all of whom delivered a close-ended season that will continue to be available on CBS All Access for new viewers to discover and enjoy."

If the show moved forward for a second season, it would have followed a completely different criminal case.