When Does In the Dark Season 5 Come Out? Is It Renewed?

What is In the Dark about?

In the Dark works because it refuses to treat blindness as either tragedy or inspiration. Murphy Mason is a mess, and her blindness is just one fact about her among many others, no less important than her terrible judgment in men or her talent for antagonizing everyone around her. Perry Mattfeld plays her with an exasperated sharpness that makes you believe Murphy would annoy you in real life and that you'd probably enjoy it anyway. The show's actual engine is a murder investigation that unfolds across four seasons, but that plot exists mostly in service of watching Murphy careen through her own life with a dog named Pretzel and zero impulse control.

The tone is genuinely messy in a way that suits the story. It swings from comedy to something darker without warning, treating its crime elements as serious while never letting the show forget that Murphy's mother owns a guide-dog school and that fact is funny. The writing wants you to care about whether Murphy solves the murder and whether she'll ever achieve basic stability. It's not entirely successful at balancing both, and some seasons lean too hard on the crime plot when the character stuff is more interesting, but the willingness to let the show be sloppy and character-driven gives it texture.

Critics were lukewarm and audiences remained a loyal but modest following. The show was never a breakout hit, and its cancellation after four seasons felt inevitable. What kept people watching was not suspense about the murder but investment in Murphy's life and her relationships, particularly with Felix, her best friend and roommate, who becomes the show's emotional anchor. Those who stuck with it appreciated what the show attempted more than what it achieved.

In the Dark is a character-driven show hamstrung by its murder plot, and too tethered to that mystery to fully become the personality-based comedy it sometimes wants to be. Still, if you can accept a show that would spend time on Murphy's dating disasters instead of resolving tension in its main mystery, there's something worth watching here.

Created by Corinne Kingsbury

Is In the Dark renewed or cancelled?

Why was In the Dark cancelled?

In the Dark occupied an awkward space on The CW's roster, a dark comedy about a blind woman navigating crime and relationships that never quite found the audience size the network needed to justify its production costs. By the time it wrapped its fourth season in 2022, the show had settled into a steady but modest viewership that reflected a broader reality about the network's struggles: good shows with devoted fans were no longer enough to survive when those fans numbered in the hundreds of thousands rather than millions.

The CW's finances have been under pressure for years, and the network made the strategic choice to lean harder into superhero content and established franchises that could anchor its schedule. A character-driven dramedy about a blind PI in Chicago, however well-executed, couldn't compete with the pull of shows like The Flash or Supernatural reruns in terms of licensing value or advertising draw. Four seasons and 52 episodes gave In the Dark a respectable run, and the show had a chance to build toward something resembling closure, but the network ultimately determined that the slot and budget could be better deployed elsewhere.

There's no indication the cancellation came as a shock to the creators or cast. In the Dark had done its job, telling its story across four seasons with a conclusion that aired in early September 2022. The show ended on its own terms rather than mid-arc, which is more than many network dramas get. Its cancellation reflects not a failure of quality but the simple economics of cable television in an era when traditional networks are fighting for relevance against streaming services that operate on entirely different business models.

In the Dark Season 5 Release Date

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