Fourth, final season for Big C

US cablenet Showtime will draw a line under its drama The Big C after the upcoming fourth season, and will launch a documentary strand profiling cultural figures.

David Nevins

Laura Linney vehicle The Big C, about a woman who begins to enjoy life after being diagnosed with cancer, will end next year after the final four hour-long episodes.

On launch two years ago, the show brought Showtime its biggest original series audience in eight years.

The show comes from Sony Pictures Television (SPT), Perkins Street Productions, Farm Kid Films and Original Film and has been a hit internationally. Broadcasters such as More4 in the UK, Canal+ in France, Fox in Germany and HBO in Brazil and Mexico are among those to have acquired it from SPT.

Showtime used its Television Critics Association (TCA) presentation to unveil a new doc strand titled Closeup and a second season of Inside Comedy.

Closeup will include profiles of controversial people such as rap mogul Suge Knight, former US vice president Dick Cheney and music executive Tommy Mottola, the latter coming from filmmaker Brett Ratner.

Showtime president David Nevins also restated the “plan” to end serial killer drama Dexter after another two seasons, though he added this was not definite and he would be “stupid not to leave the door open.” There are also plans for more seasons of period drama The Borgias and UK-coproduced sitcom Episodes.

Elsewhere in the TCAs, The CW revealed plans for a TV remake of Japanese novel Battle Royale, which was made into a feature film in 2000.

The controversial story follows school children forced to fight to the death on a remote island, although The CW president Mark Pedowitz said he wanted the tone to be closer to HBO’s Game of Thrones or teen movie The Hunger Games.

In related news, CBS has tapped Bones creator Hart Hanson to develop a one-hour crime drama based on the Backstrom books of Swedish criminologist Leif GW Persson. Twentieth Television is attached.