Netflix: 12 Shows Canceled After Only 1 Season

Netflix has canceled plenty of shows in its time as a production company, but the most heartbreaking are those canceled after just one season.

Netflix original shows are some of the most fresh, groundbreaking series in the making right now, but unfortunately they are some of the most risky as well. The streaming service has shown that it has no problem spending loads of money on a new show one year and then dropping it the next season at a loss. Some of these shows go on to become cult classics or even big hits, but if they fall short of Netflix‘s metrics, it may be too late.

There is a lot of debate about how and how Netflix decides to cancel certain shows these days, but nothing is certain. The company has the luxury of being relatively secretive about its methods, as it does on publish ratings or other data publicly. Some fans are grumbling about the pattern of shows canceled after three seasons, but in many ways the series that got only one season are even more sad.

“Canceling shows is always painful — but it’s also always a very careful, case-by-case decision,” read a tweet from Netflix back in February.

The streaming giant has repeatedly assured fans that shows are only canceled for practical reasons. That has not stopped some from being outraged, feeling that Netflix is missing the big picture when their personal favorite falls by the wayside. Many also feel that the streaming service should factor in issues of representation when making its decisions, such as with One Day at a Time.

In the meantime, Netflix soldiers on through the criticism, and the one-season shows fall into the stuff of entertainment industry legends. Here is a look at some of the most beloved Netflix original series that have been canceled after just one season.

Chambers

Of course, this week fans are all buzzing about Chambers, the supernatural horror series canceled on Tuesday. The show premiered in April, and featured an all-star cast including Uma Thurman, Tony Goldwyn, Sivan Alyra Rose and Marcus LaVoi. There are 10 episodes of Chambers available on Netflix now, but sadly that is all there will ever be.

All About the Washingtons

All About the Washingtons was a full-blown multi-cam sitcom, with an impressive list of experienced writers, producers and stars. Nevertheless, it got just one season consisting of 10 episodes, which premiered on Aug. 10, 2018. The show’s cancellation was announced in October.

Seven Seconds

Many fans were shocked last year when Netflix dropped Seven Seconds. The series was an adaptation of a classic Russian film called The Major, and was one of Netflix’s best attempts at a crime drama so far. After premiering in February, Netflix announced the cancellation in April, much to fans’ dismay.

Everything Sucks!

Everything Sucks! was a teen drama of the highest order, paying homage to everything from John Hughes movies to Freaks and Geeks. The series was set in the mid-1990s, with half-hour episodes full of laughs and intrigue. All 10 episodes hit Netflix in February of 2018, but in April Netflix announced that there would be no more.

The Get Down

Baz Luhrmann’s The Get Down may be one of the biggest productions ever canceled by Netflix. The show was littered with huge names, including rapper Nas as its narrator and Shameik Moore as one of its stars. It has given rise to their huge names as well, including Justice Smith, who starred in Detective Pikachu last month, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, who went on to have roles in Baywatch, The Greatest Showman and Us, while joining the DC super hero universe as Black Manta, the enemy of Aquaman.

The Break with Michele Wolf

The timing was not quite right for The Break, as its host Michele Wolf was the controversial host of the last White House Correspondents’ Dinner shortly before it premiered. Wolf was criticized for her jokes about White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and ultimately the publicity may have hurt her politically-oriented talk show. The Break with Michele Wolf ran for one season last year with just 10 episodes, coming to an end in July.

Nightflyers

HBO may have built a fortune on Game of Thrones, but not every George R.R. Martin novel adaptation is a guaranteed success. Fans learned that last year with Nightflyers, a TV adaptation of one of Martin’s early science fiction books.

The show ran on the SyFy network in the U.S., although Netflix was a co-producer on the project. Overseas, Nightflyers was a Netflix exclusive. Either way, fans were left hanging when in February of this year, the show was officially canceled.

The Good Cop

Last year, Netflix released a police drama that seemed to have a mix of strange ingredients — enough at least to draw some interest. The show starred Tony Danza and singer Josh Groban, a father and son duo consisting of one honest cop and one disgraced officer. The Good Cop hit the streaming service last year and after a slew of poor reviews, it was quietly canceled.

Girlboss

Netflix adapted Sophia Amoruso’s autobiography #Girlboss into an original series, with a full 13-episode order. It told the story of Amoruso’s company Nasty Gal, which she founded while working as a campus safety host at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. The show came out in April of 2017, but it was canceled shortly after its release. 

Gypsy

Netflix poured a lot of resources into Gypsy, a psychological thriller starring Naomi Watts and Billy Crudup. The company even hired Stevie Nicks to record an acoustic version of “Gypsy” by Fleetwood Mac as the theme song, but it could not carry the show to another season. Unfortunately for fans, the series only made it one season of 10 episodes, leaving them hanging.

The Joel McHale Show

There was little surprise when Netflix dropped The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale, a series similar to his old comedy show The Soup. In it, McHale gathered viral videos from around the web and roasted the people in them with his unique brand of cutting wit. Some saw the show as too mean-spirited and not fresh enough. The show aired from week to week starting in February of 2018, and it was canceled that August.

Disjointed

Once again, Netflix seemed to have all the pieces in place with Disjointed, a multi-cam sitcom co-created by Chuck Lorre and starring Kathy Bates. The series followed a legal cannabis advocate who finally got what she had wanted all these years, only to find that running a marijuana dispensary was not all she expected it to be. The series had 20 episodes in total, released in two batches of 10, but technically it was just one season.