Season 4 of the American thriller drama TV series “The Following” on Fox starring Kevin Bacon may have been gone for good as early as May this year, but the show’s merchandise are still being marketed online.
Looking into the Facebook account of the TV series, it seems that it actually took the show almost two months before it officially ended marketing merchandise products to its fans including coffee mugs, stickers, T-shirts, caps, among others.
The last post on the Facebook page of “The Following” was dated July 3, which is about a month and a half after the show aired its final episode on May 18. Fox announced the cancellation of Season 4 of the TV series shortly thereafter.
However, over at the Fox online store, other merchandise items of the TV series are still up for grabs including Blu-Ray DVD sets, a bloody hand print rock glass, a blouse, a paper weight, a sweatshirt, poster, notebooks, and some more.
Not going down without a fight
Some fans of the show can’t still get enough of “The Following” just yet as they were simply not convinced that the TV series had to go and will not go down without a fight.
That’s when they decided to initiate an online petition among the loyal viewers of the show and make their signature campaign a tool for the show producers to either convince Fox to reconsider its decision of cancelling “The Following” or use it as a marketing tool to have another network or a streaming service pick up the show and rescue it from cancellation.
Unfortunately, the online petition lost steam even before it hit the targeted 25,000 fan signatures so that the producers of “The Following” will have something to show to Fox, the other networks, or the streaming services, as regards the marketability potentials of the TV series.
When the online petition was started in July, it came out very strong. However, after a few days, it has lost steam and managed to churn out ‘only’ 13,000 signatures from the very conservative target of 25,000.
Having seen for themselves how the online petition came out, the producers were already certain that there will be no more of the TV series after Season 3 of “The Following.” It was also for that reason that Fox was prompted to say that the fans of the TV series really did not fight for the show the way they have been hyping about, reports Yibada.
No show-saver
Sometime in July, there were reports that Netflix has signified interest to pick up “The Following” for Season 4 and rescue it from cancellation but it turned out to be a hoax, much to the chagrin of the fans of the TV series.
It was actually actor Shawn Ashmore, who plays the role of FBI Agent Mike Weston in the TV series, who clarified that Netflix has not saved the show from cancellation.
Subsequently, reports started coming out that the show was also offered to the Hulu streaming service, but the company did not budge.
Some weeks before the decision of Netflix not to accept the offer to save “The Following” from cancellation, rumors actually abound on the internet that Warner Bros Television and the streaming service are close to forging a deal, driving avid fans of the show crazy and very happy. However, it proved later that it was just mere speculations and more like a wishful thinking on the part of the fans of the show.
“The Following” is actually an intense, emotionally-charged and violent TV series, which has a captivating storyline especially with the witty and thought-provoking exchanges of FBI Agent Ryan Hardy, played by veteran Hollywood actor Kevin Bacon, and serial killer Joe Carroll, played by James Purefoy.
Fox decided to cancel the show after three seasons because of declining ratings and it seems that the aborted online petition also indicated the same pattern for the airing of the show.