According to a new entertainment news report, Apple TV+’s drama series Shantaram, starring Charlie Hunnam, will not be returning for a second season. Its Season 1 finale, to be released tomorrow, December 16, will serve as a series finale.

Based on Gregory David Roberts’ epic, 900-plus-page novel, Shantaram was an ambitious, big-scope undertaking, shot across two continents, that was impacted by the pandemic.

The series had shot two episodes before pausing filming in late February 2020. Because of its expansive nature requiring filming in multiple countries, the series did not resume production on the remaining 10 episodes until May 2021.

Shantaram, which hasn’t generated the level of buzz some of Apple TV+’s popular titles have, follows Lin Ford (Hunnam), who escapes a maximum-security Australian prison, reinvents himself as a doctor in the slums of 1980s Bombay, gets entangled with a local mafia boss and eventually uses his gun-running and counterfeiting skills to fight against the invading Russian troops in Afghanistan. All the while he is falling for an enigmatic and intriguing woman named Karla (Antonia Desplat) and must choose between freedom or love and the complications that come with it. For more on this, read the full Deadline report.

There are many reasons why a particular series doesn't get the traction it needs to continue on to multiple seasons. The story line may have been too complicated to follow by North Americans or, it could also be Apple's determination to kill the flow of a deep story into weekly installments.

Streaming promised to be different than cable TV. Yet presenting the bulk of every new Apple TV+ drama series into weekly installments has been the greatest disappointment I've had with Apple TV+. Weekly installments of a show kills the momentum of drawing an audience into a story.

In other Apple news – The NFL-Apple Sunday Ticket talks threaten to stretch into the New Year. For more, read the full Sportico report (behind paywall).

Archive: Apple TV News