My subscription will be expiring soon.
I was really excited to watch Netflix’s latest original series, Kaos, which looks like The Boys if it was set in the world of Greek Mythology and stars Jeff Goldblum. I thought it had a lot of promise.
And, before I got a chance to watch it – and after being out for less than six weeks! – Netflix announced that there would be no Season 2.
Absolute Chaos
This is the latest in a series of high-profile, well-reviewed shows that had already acquired some fans who were outraged at the news of their premature cancellation. And it’s not just Netflix. Just a few months ago, I dived into The Acolyte, which wasn’t exactly my favourite of the Star Wars shows but didn’t deserve to be cancelled so soon after its last episode aired. My wife and I were also really enjoying Season 2 of Our Flag Means Death (when we were finally able to watch it on the iPlayer) when we discovered there would be no Season 3.
Obviously, there are a range of reasons why a show might be cancelled. There’s the fact that most people in Hollywood eventually turn out to be massive c*nts. Now, we can debate whether or not shows like Dead Boy Detectives deserve to go down with their creators, but that’s a whole separate issue.
And I’m sure the studios would say, “The shows aren’t getting enough views”, but there are so many streaming platforms now, so many shows competing for our attention. Those of us living in the real world have jobs, families… and not a lot of free time. My wife and I had every intention of watching Kaos, but we needed to find the time to watch it together, when we weren’t working opposite shifts or looking after our son. (And after finishing the stuff that we were already watching!) And now that it’s been cancelled, we’re not sure it’s worth starting.
Would it have really hurt to wait a bit longer before making that call? We’ve already had to get used to waiting two or three years between seasons of Stranger Things! Kaos might have become the most-watched series on the platform over Christmas, but now we’ll never know!
The Real Problem
I know the world’s in a bit of a state, and ultimately, everything comes down to money. But there seems to be a trend of studios investing millions of dollars in making and promoting these shows, only to cancel them before their time; not only before they have a realistic chance to find a fanbase but before most people even get the chance to give them a try. I can only assume that some dull executives – who only care about making money and don’t have a spark of joy or creativity in them – decide to cancel the shows because they don’t meet some (clearly unrealistic) viewing targets. And they don’t seem to be learning their lesson! They’re not adjusting those expectations or hedging their bets by creating more lower-budget shows, but continuing to take these insane, all-or-nothing risks.
It sucks. I enjoy a show only for it to end on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved. Or I wonder if there’s any point in watching a show that’s already been cancelled, knowing there will never be a proper resolution to the story.
If they keep eroding peoples’ trust like this – and if there’s nothing original on these platforms worth coming back for – then maybe it’s time to take the advice of all the Boomers and question why we’re paying for all these subscriptions. The prices keep going up, but the content isn’t improving. In fact, content, new and classic, keeps disappearing, leaving us with even less content to enjoy. Content!
Another part of the problem is that there are too many different streaming platforms trying to hold our favourite shows hostage. When Netflix launched, I’m convinced that piracy – which had been rampant – decreased because you could watch everything in one place for one low price. But in 2024, I simply can’t afford to pay for Paramout+ and HBO Max (or whatever it’s called this week). I have Netflix and Disney+ (for now!) because they’ve got more of what I watch on them than the others, and I can barely afford them on top of all my other bills.
If only they weren’t so greedy and could just settle for sharing their profits with Netflix, like they used to, instead of wasting money developing their own platforms and having to compete with each other. And I’m sure piracy is on the rise because of all this (but I wouldn’t know anything about that!).
Maybe the best we can hope for now is that all these new platforms fail, and Disney buys up everything else they don’t already own. It would mean we were living in a dystopian nightmare. But at least then, we’d only need one subscription service!
Final Thoughts
I’m not the first person to declare that once Stranger Things comes to an end, I’m going to need a reason to continue to send money to Netflix.
And right now, I’m struggling to think of one!