Is ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ cancelled forever?

So You Think You Can Dance has been a landmark show on Fox’s summer lineup for years, but 2020 has been a year where even set in stone shows are having difficulties resuming production. With such a large competition, of course the network is afraid to have the show go back into production.

Unfortunately, the 17th season of the show has been shelved for the summer, since Fox doesn’t know when it’ll be safe to start production on the next season. Of course, this has people asking the question if this is the end of So You Think You Can Dance. The short answer is no, but the long answer is a bit more complicated. 

Season 17 is coming

Since Fox officially renewed So You Think You Can Dance for a 17th season back in February, the show was set to premiere summer 2020. Of course, then COVID-19 happened, so pre-production was halted, and the show was pushed back until later in the year. 

But of course, it’s June now, and COVID-19 hasn’t gone away. In a show like So You Think You Can Dance, that has an audience and holds auditions for contestants, it’s hard to film a show like that in these conditions. So Fox announced the 17th season was being shelved for now, with plans to return in summer 2021. 

Coming up with a corona-proof plan

For the show to go back into production though, the production team needs to figure out a plan to keep contestants, judges, and audience members safe. A lot of Fox’s scripted series haven’t come out of shutdown for this exact reason, even though LA has lifted their filming restrictions. 

Really, the only Fox show to come out of quarantine is The Masked Singer. Since the show has so many protocols in place to begin with to keep its guests secret, it’s no surprise they can make it corona-proofed. 

In the case of shows like So You Think You Can Dance that have to deal with outside people, it’s going to be hard to come up with an easy to follow coronavirus prevention plan. Until a true cure or vaccine is created for coronavirus, it wouldn’t be surprising if So You Think You Can Dance was shut down indefinitely. 

Will it come back?

The real question is, will people still watch So You Think You Can Dance even when it comes back? Last summer, the show wasn’t awful in rankings compared to some summer programming, but it wasn’t great. The show was averaging 2.8 million views after 7 day delay viewings were included. 

The show has been around for years, and slowly but surely losing viewers with each season. Even if they reinvigorate the franchise when it comes back, will that be enough after taking a summer off? We’ll have to wait and see how people feel about a summer without So You Think You Can Dance.