Apple TV+'s Dick Turpin show cancelled after Noel Fielding pulls out

Streaming giants cancelling TV shows is nothing new, but the recent cancellation of Apple TV+’s The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin is anything but ordinary.

The second season of the show was reportedly half-way through filming. The team was set to return to finish off the job, but star Noel Fielding has pulled out of the production.

According to The Sun, the show’s crew were told filming was cancelled following "the illness of a key cast member.”

Fielding has not yet released a statement on the matter — his most recent social media post is a tribute to iconic filmmaker David Lynch, whose death was announced on January 16.

Deadline also reports there’s “no hope” of The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin getting back into production.

The internet is rife with speculation on the full story behind the show’s cancellation, but it’s hard to picture Fielding leaving without a fairly strong reason to do so.

Fielding may be best known to younger folks as one of the presenters in Bake Off. But he started his TV career as much as a writer and show creator as an actor, in The Mighty Boosh. He knows better than most what it takes to actually get a TV show off the ground.

The first season of The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin was released in March 2024, and was met with mostly positive reviews.

Fielding played Dick Turpin in the show, which was a light-hearted look at the historical figure, a highwayman from the 18th century. It was renewed for a second season in July 2024, a few months after the first season's release.

The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin is not Apple TV+’s first cancellation, but news of the streamer’s cancelled shows doesn’t come with anything like the regularity of Netflix’s culling sprees. That’s in part because Apple TV+ commissions far fewer shows in the first place.

Among its previous cancellations are Time Bandits, Schmigadoon!, Constellation and Sunny.

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