We Finally Know Why Fox Canceled Lucifer

To say that fans were a little peeved when Fox canceled the fan-favorite series Luciferafter three seasons is an understatement. The response on social media was so deafening that eventually Netflix swooped in to save the Tom Ellis-led series. But according to Dana Walden, chairman and CEO of Fox Television Group, the social campaign to save Lucifer never once made Fox executives think twice about bringing the show back the way NBC twice brought back Timeless after canceling it.

"We had a great time working with that cast and the executive producers of the show. It worked well for us," Walden said Thursday at the Television Critics Association Summer press tour. "[But] as we were going into this season, we looked at the size of the audience, which was starting to get pretty narrow. We just made a determination that given ... it was owned by an outside studio, at the time we couldn't justify the economics. It was not an inexpensive show, and we just made a decision that ultimately it wasn't performing to a broad enough audience in a way that worked for us."

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"We thought a lot about [the decision to cancel the show]," she added. "It was a lot of conversations."

Well, at least Netflix cared.