Jeremy Renner's Canceled Detective Series Deserved A Second Season

Before he was saving the world as Hawkeye in Marvel Studios' Avengers movies, Jeremy Renner was fighting crime in a very different setting. ABC's "The Unusuals" was a comedy-drama police procedural that ran for one season in 2009. Across its 10-episode run, "The Unusuals" followed Detective Casey Shraeger (Amber Tamblyn) as she joined the fictional 2nd Precinct in New York City. There, she's paired with Renner's Detective Jason Walsh following the murder of his previous partner. At the 2nd Precinct, Casey finds herself surrounded by detectives with dark secrets and eccentric personalities as she gradually uncovers complicated dynamics within the department.

"The Unusuals" was truly unique in its day. The series combined the dark and gritty drama of other police procedurals with oddball characters and a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, injecting a comedic sensibility into its brief run. This distinctive blend of tone gave "The Unusuals" a voice that set it apart from more conventional police procedurals at the time. As creator Noah Hawley, who would go on to develop shows like "Fargo," "Legion," and "Alien: Earth," told The Futon Critic ahead of the series' premiere, "if this show doesn't work as a drama, it won't work as a comedy" — a difficult balance for network television at the time.

Though the series was short-lived, the reception was overwhelmingly positive. At the time of writing, "The Unusuals" has a 72% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 100% audience score.

Looking back, "The Unusuals" feels like a show that struggled to fit within network television's expectations at the time. Speaking to the Radio Times in 2025, Hawley said, "I couldn't make a great show. I could make a good show with a lot of pushback from the network about trying to make something more traditional."

The series also featured early appearances from actors who would later become major stars, including Adam Driver and Miles Teller. While those guest stars stand out more in hindsight, they reflect the show's eye for talent rather than serving as the reason it worked.

Despite broadly positive reviews, "The Unusuals" struggled to find a large enough audience to remain on the air. It debuted to 6.83 million viewers, a number that continued to fall as the series went on. By the time the sixth episode aired, ABC had decided to pull the plug on the show. Today, the series is available to purchase via Prime Video, Apple TV, or Google Play, but is not widely available to stream on any major platforms.