With FOX airing the 2-hour Season 1 finale to ‘The Gifted’ on Monday, January 15, a lot of fans have been wondering about the future of the series, especially in light of the recent news about Disney acquiring 20th Century Fox and regaining the rights to the mutants and the X-Men that the show relies so heavily on. Luckily for fans of the series (and there are quite a few, as the show is doing well), FOX has announced that they are picking up the show for Season 2, which guarantees we will at least be seeing a little bit more of the show before the merger finishes (best estimates are that the deal will be finalized within 1 year).
Oddly enough, in renewing for a second season, FOX is also bringing back Bryan Singer as executive producer, which many are going to feel ill-at-ease about since the man is currently facing sexual misconduct allegations and a lawsuit claiming sexual assault. According to FOX Entertainment President Michael Thorn while speaking about Singer’s involvement in the series:
“As part of his deal for directing the pilot, he is an executive producer on the series…Truthfully, after he shot the pilot, he went and did a movie and had little to no involvement day-to-day in Season 1. But we take all the allegations very seriously, and we’re looking into it for Season 2. Right now we have a lot of time before it premieres, and we continue to have discussions about it.”
So if Thorn is accurate here, they do not even really need Singer for the series, so why bring him back at all? That’s the confusing part. Especially with FOX so close to being under the Disney umbrella, and Disney having no tolerance for this sort of thing, it just seems like they are unnecessarily bringing back PR onto the show. I get that Singer directed the pilot and probably helped get the concept together, but he is toxic at the moment and anything he remains attached to is going to suffer because of it.
Do you think the show will change during its second season if they lost Singer? Or do you think it will do just fine without him, as Thorn is claiming? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
