Amelia Crowley
Contributing Writer
Netflix is an almost unparalleled power in media streaming, a virtue of the platform being one of the first of its kind. It feels like a need to have in today’s streaming world. The platform has anything you can think of, from “The Great British Baking Show” to comedy specials, from “Stranger Things” to “The Walking Dead.” And of course it has its own original programming.
Now, I wouldn’t consider myself a television expert, and my trivia scores certainly speak to that, but I am more than a casual viewer. I prefer TV shows to movies like how I prefer books and print media to film. When I enjoy a show, I really enjoy it. My friends and family who are subjected to my rants can attest to this fact.
So, think of your favorite show. The first season. You just watched it and can’t wait for season two. A few months later, instead of the date of the next season’s release, Netflix says, “oh, hey, sorry, that show you really liked? Yeah, we’re cancelling it. No, no, everyone loved it. And we’re still cancelling it.”
This has happened with so many shows I’ve enjoyed that I barely know where to start. Maybe with the freshest wound. “Dead Boy Detectives,” based on the DC comics written by Neil Gaiman and much beloved by yours truly. It was so good that I watched it three times in a two month period. And generally, I’m not one to rewatch shows, especially not that quickly. While my sister likes to watch shows like “Friends” or “Gilmore Girls” on repeat, I tend to watch a show once, digest it and move on. Maybe rewatch it in a couple years. And, this might be a bias towards Neil Gaiman’s characters, but “Dead Boy Detectives” was so good that I ended up watching another Netflix show, “The Sandman,” purely because it was set in the same universe.
Another show that I loved from Netflix was “Lockwood and Co.,” a series based on books of the same name by Johnathan Stroud. In a similar vein to “Dead Boy Detectives,” “Lockwood and Co.” also follows a group of teenage-adjacent sleuths solving supernatural mysteries (what can I say, I have a type). The soundtrack was amazing, the characters were interesting, season one ended on a cliffhanger and Netflix cancelled it without a second thought.
For these two examples that I really liked, the problem can’t be assigned to writing issues or a lack of ideas because both of the shows were adapted from already existing — and continued — source material. If a show like “Supernatural” can hold on for 15 seasons with a captive audience even as the quality goes downhill, why does Netflix keep cancelling good shows after just one season? And, unlike older shows like “Supernatural,” these new shows often have even fewer episodes per season. While “Supernatural” was averaging 22 episodes per season, “Dead Boy Detectives” and “Lockwood and Co.” only have eight episodes each.
This isn’t a problem that’s just plaguing me and the genres I like. Other shows that have gotten the same treatment include “1899,” “Shadow and Bone,” “Mindhunter,” “Marco Polo,” “Glow,” “Hollywood” and more.
I can’t make Netflix un-cancel the shows. I can’t convince them it was a bad idea. They’re a huge company, and I doubt they’ll ever know this article exists. But I made you think about it. Next time a show you love gets cancelled, think about this article, and think about if your show deserved to be cancelled. And maybe I’ve convinced you to watch “Dead Boy Detectives” or “Lockwood and Co.” You’ve been warned, they both only have one season. But both of those seasons are so good in their own right that I think everyone should watch them. People complain about cancel culture all the time, but what I really care about is Netflix’s cancel culture that targets some of the only good shows on the platform.