‘Shining Vale’ Resurfaces On Max Post Starz Cancellation

A year after Shining Vale was canceled by Starz and removed from the streamer’s library, the existing two seasons of the series, starring Courteney Cox and Greg Kinnear, are available for streaming again, this time on Max.

The Warner Bros. Discovery streamer has picked up the two seasons of horror comedy, produced by sibling Warner Bros. Television which at the time of the December 2023 cancellation tried to find a new home for it. Made available Jan. 1, the series shot up to #3 on the platform within its first 24 hours on the platform.

Season 1 of Shining Vale, from creators Jeff Astrof and Sharon Horgan, followed Pat (Cox) and Terry Phelps (Kinnear), a married couple who cash in their life savings and move from a cramped Brooklyn apartment to an old Victorian mansion in Connecticut, as a last-ditch effort to save their marriage. Doors slam, the piano plays by itself and when an old-fashioned-looking woman appears to hover outside the family window, Pat believes that she is going crazy — or worse. Every family has its demons, but for the Phelps, theirs may be real.

Season 2 picked up after the chaotic Season 1 finale when Pat lands herself in a psychiatric hospital for trying to murder her family with an ax. While there, she went through extensive electroshock therapy, and when she returns home, she meets a mysterious woman who introduces her to a host of ancient remedies used to “cure” women of depression, including the apocryphal Smile Masks. Meanwhile, the Phelpses continued to be haunted by ghosts while Pat struggled to live with mental illness in a broken family, battling demons both internally and externally.

The series also stars Mira Sorvino, Gus Birney, Merrin Dungey and Dylan Gage, with features Judith Light, Allison Tolman and Sherilyn Fenn.

Shining Vale was executive produced by Astrof from Other Shoe Productions, Horgan and Clelia Mountford from Merman and Aaron Kaplan and Melanie Frankel from Kapital Entertainment. Cox also served as a producer. Warner Bros. Television co-produced with Lionsgate Television in association with Other Shoe Productions, Merman and Kapital Entertainment.