Massively Popular Netflix Series Wasn’t Supposed to Be a Netflix Show at All

If you’ve ever been a Netflix member for any period of time, there’s probably a good chance you’ve seen an episode or two of Black Mirror.

The sci-fi anthology series, often likened to a modern Twilight Zone, is one of the most popular on Netflix and is currently entering its seventh season.

But did you know it originally wasn’t supposed to be on Netflix at all?

The original two-season run of Black Mirror in the UK was only on Channel 4, and no American networks wanted to touch the series for a licensing deal. (If you’ve seen the first episode, which features a terrorist kidnapping a royal princess and threatening to execute her unless the country’s Prime Minister has sex with a pig on a livestream, it’s not exactly hard to see why.)

But then, Netflix bought the U.S. streaming rights just before the Jon Hamm-starring episode White Christmas aired, and the series caught fire worldwide.

Netflix then delivered a coup de grace to Channel 4’s plans for the series after paying series creator Charlie Brooker over $40 million for the rights to all future episodes—at the time, a significant amount of money for a streaming series, and a total knockout blow to the UK channel.

With how ubiquitous Black Mirror was to Internet culture (especially in America) in the mid-2010s, it’s hard to imagine a world where it stayed in the U.K. forever.

Season seven of Black Mirror is streaming on Netflix now.