Featured Image Credit: Netflix
Topics: Netflix, Film and TV
Michael Slavin
Netflix fans have realised that there's a genre they feel the streamer has been incredibly harsh to, and once it’s pointed out, it’s kinda hard to unsee.
Now, Netflix cancelling shows isn’t a new phenomenon.
Since the streamer has been around it has been fairly well known that even if it’s a pretty popular pretty well-regarded show, Netflix are ruthless when it comes to cutting the thread on a show.
Whether it be 1899, The Society, or Shadow and Bone, some deeply popular shows have gotten the axe in recent years. Various reasons have been provided for why this may be.
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Other than the obvious ones, such as no one watching a show – there are a number of hidden metrics we don’t see when it comes to a show being cancelled.
Yes, your favourite show may have been number 1 on Netflix for a week, but how many people actually finished it? How many extra viewers are they actually getting in after two or so seasons?
These are just two of the numerous hidden metrics which Netflix doesn’t release unless they want to, and they have many.
One of the major factors of a show which appears to be influencing Netflix’s decision to cancel it though?
It being a fantasy show.
Now, obviously Netflix aren’t just cancelling shows purely because they’re fantasy. But when it’s pointed out quite how many on the streamer have cancelled, there has to be some logic behind it.
An account on Twitter dedicated to renewing Shadow and Bone, a Netflix fantasy TV show that adapted a popular book series, posted a graphic which showed the pure number of fantasy shows on the platform to have been cancelled.
They posted the below with the caption: “Netflix either needs to do better, or just stay away from fantasy entirely. This is just ridiculous. The fans deserve better.”
Fans were outraged once it was pointed out, as if this was the final piece of the jigsaw for them to realise what has been going on.
One account replied saying: “It’s still insane to me that they cancelled Dark Crystal. Unforgivable. They won’t even let Henson’s company take the show elsewhere. At this point the only thing that Netflix does well is documentaries.”
Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance was another show that has been cancelled by Netflix, a TV follow up to the classic 80s movie.
Another account tweeted: “The worst part about this is that they have this horrible habit of letting the first season of a show end on a cliffhanger and then cancelling it, meaning there will never be an answer to all the questions left in the story. No resolution. No real ending.”
Netflix’s CEO, Ted Sarandos, has previously said of the streamer’s strategy of cancelling shows: “We have never canceled a successful show. A lot of these shows were well-intended but talk to a very small audience on a very big budget.
“The key to it is you have to be able to talk to a small audience on a small budget and a large audience at a large budget.”
UNILAD has contacted Netflix for comment