Netflix Quietly Canceled Another Show Last Year Without Many Noticing

Netflix has given the ax to yet another popular series. The streamer seems to have quietly canceled the Netflix original drama Tiny Pretty Things after just a single season. Although Netflix never formally announced a cancellation, actor Brennan Clost, who starred in the series as Shane McRae, confirmed the news to fans in a November 2021 YouTube video.

Telling fans that “this is not an easy video to make,” the actor confirmed that “Netflix has decided not to renewed Tiny Pretty Things for a second season.” While Clost’s video marked the first confirmation that the series would not return for a sophomore run, Clost revealed that the cast and crew learned of the cancellation “a long time ago.” The way Netflix works, they really look at the analytics between the show’s release and the first 10 days, and then the first 30 days from its release.” He went on to share that they were told of the cancellation around nine months prior to the video, adding, “it’s been a long time that we have known this, that the show would not be coming back.” An emotional Clost called the cancellation “such a heartbreak,” sharing that Tiny Pretty Things “and the people making it have meant so much to me, in my career as a young actor and just in general for me as Brennan.”

“Netflix told us they were not going to announce it because the way that Netflix content works is that it is evergreen on their platform. It will stay up forever on Netflix,” Clost went on to explain. “They didn’t want to take away from the discoverability….If people know that a show isn’t coming back for a second season, more often than not they’re going to choose not to watch it. They don’t want to get attached. That’s also sort of the same reason why as a cast-we discussed it with our producers, our showrunner, with each other-we decided to keep it quiet that the show wasn’t coming back.”

Based on Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton’s 2016 book of the same name, Tiny Pretty Things was described by the platform as Black Swan meets Pretty Little Liars.” Set at the fictional Archer School of Ballet, an elite Chicago-based ballet school, the series revolves around the lives of the school’s students, instructors, administrators, and benefactors. The series premiered in December 2020 and was met with mixed reviews, earning a 53% critic’s rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 50% audience score. Along with Clost, Tiny Pretty Things starred Barton Cowperthwaite, Bayardo De Murguia, Damon J. Gillespie, Kylie Jefferson, Casimere Jollette, Anna Maiche, Daniela Norman, Michael Hsu Rosen, Tory Trowbridge, Jess Salgueiro, and Lauren Holly. Season 1 is available for streaming on Netflix.