News Brief : Renewals and Cancellations

.... Lifetime cancels Army Wives after 7 seasons
Lifetime has decided to divorce Army Wives—its longest-running original series—after several mostly happy years together. The show concluded its seventh and now final season this past June.

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.... FX Renews The Bridge for Season 2
I get the feeling that FX wasn't too sure about this one, but the network has gone ahead and ordered a second season of The Bridge anyway. Season 2 will run for another 13 episodes and reclaim the show's status as a summer series in 2014. The renewal comes late in The Bridge's first season.

... ABC Renews Mistresses for Season 2
Mistresses, the trashy summer series will be back for a second season. That's right, Mistresses, the ABC soap starring Alyssa Milano, will be back next year. Apparently, the show was the number-two scripted network drama of the summer behind Under the Dome.
Mistresses left literally dozens of viewers hanging by a thread with a Season 1 finale that was bloated with awesome and full of insane, unresolved cliffhangers. Now we'll finally find out whether Milano's character Savi survived her terrible merge onto the freeway in her sweet ride, we'll see how her white husband reacts to her half-black baby (oopsie!), and we'll learn whether Yunjin Kim's character was shot by a crazy Penelope Ann Miller.

.... HBO renews Boardwalk Empire for Season 5
HBO has put some extra cash in the pockets of organized crime and re-upped Boardwalk Empire for a fifth season, just three episodes into Season 4. The move continues HBO's tradition of quick renewals, and was likely nudged along by Boardwalk's performance at this year's Primetime Emmy Awards: In addition to Bobby Cannavale's surprising win for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama on Sunday, the series also bagged trophies for Outstanding Art Direction for a Single-Camera Series, Outstanding Hairstyling for a Single-Camera Series, Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (One Hour), and Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series. HBO hasn't announced an episode count or target air date for Season 5, but if history is any indication (and shouldn't it be, for a period piece like this one?) "12" and "fall 2014" would be pretty safe bets.
Boardwalk Empire's still-young fourth season is averaging 7.5 million viewers per episode, according to HBO, and the show is almost certainly hoping that it will continue to earn critical recognition now that it's introduced even more potentially award-winning characters in Ron Livingston's Roy Philips and Patricia Arquette's Sally Wheet. Jeffrey Wright's Dr. Valentin Narcisse may even be an Emmy lock. Only three episodes in, the guy is quite an intriguing villain, and a perfect foil to Michael Kenneth Williams' criminally underutilized Chalky White.

... BBC America cancels Copper
I regret to inform you that BBC America has decided to pull the plug on its period drama Copper after only two seasons. The series followed Detective Kevin Corcoran (Tom Weston-Jones) in post-Civil War era New York City as he struggled with his own personal demons and the demons that plagued the slums of Five Points New York. The Season 2 finale on September 22 will now serve as a series finale.