I’m still not over TV’s most unfair series cancellation
Yesterday the hashtag #NetflixCancels went viral across social media, because people had understandably absolutely had enough of Netflix cancelling their favorite shows.
They pointed out Shadow and Bone, 1899, Warrior Nun and so many more that had been abruptly killed off, and that got me thinking about my own grudge against Netflix. I have never forgiven them for canceling The Baby-Sitters Club.
Maybe you remember the Baby-Sitters Club books from when you were a tween? They were wonderful and there were so many of them, so you were never short on reading material. They follow the adventures of a group of girls—Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne, Dawn, Stacey, Jessi and Mallory—who set out to run their own baby-sitting business. Along the way they deal with typical teenage problems like relationships and divorce.
Netflix’s adaption came out in in 2020 and it gave everything a much-needed update. The lead character group was more diverse, for a start, and they dealt with more modern-day issues—for example, the care of a transgender child. The show didn’t talk down to the young girls who were watching it, but rather presented them with a colorful, friendly guidebook to navigating teenage life. And as an adult, I loved it too. It was the exact sort of show I’d have killed to have as a child.
And then it was canceled!
Bear in mind that this was an incredibly successful show when it came to critics. It scored 100% on RottenTomatoes, a rare thing for any project. But, according to Netflix, it simply wasn’t good enough. Why? Not enough people were binge-watching it and the second season didn’t make it to Nielsen’s Top 10 weekly streaming rankings. Never mind the critical acclaim and the fanbase—it was all about the numbers.
Thankfully, the show didn’t end on a cliffhanger. Instead, it ended on a lovely moment as Kristy’s stepfather planned to adopt her and her siblings. But there were still so many places the show could have gone, and so many books to adapt and update! I personally was looking forward to more Janine—Claudia’s older sister and my favorite character—after she came out as lesbian and gained a girlfriend. But no. It was so bitterly disappointing.
What did showrunner Rachel Shukert say about the cancellation?
Speaking to Vulture in 2022, Rachel Shukert didn’t hold back her disappointment at the show being cancelled. “I don’t know what [Netflix] wanted that they didn’t get,” she said. “It seems like girls are expected to go straight from Doc McStuffins to Euphoria.”
She went on,
Completion rates are a big deal, and our show takes longer to complete because it’s for a younger audience. Parents don’t necessarily let kids sit and watch six hours of television at a time — probably rightly! Or they want to save it so they can all watch together. Our executives were certainly aware of this and tried to make the case for us. But at Netflix, it’s more about if your show works on the platform than if the platform is working for your show. They want people to watch it a certain way, and they want shows that people will watch that way — not shows that people want to watch in their own way.
And, as we know, this is an ongoing problem with Netflix shows. Anything that isn’t a huge hit right away ends up on the chopping block.
And Netflix doesn’t look like it’s going to change its ways anytime soon, as the constant cancellations prove. So the platform has got a lot of disappointed customers—and plenty of them are teenage girls. Why can’t they have just smart entertainment targeted at them?
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