14 cancelled Netflix shows that everybody wants back-Caroline Westbrook and Rebecca Sayce-Entertainment – Metro

Fans can’t let these Netflix shows go (Pictures: Getty)

Netflix regularly hooks viewers into their new favourite shows and evening binge-watch obsessions… before swiftly taking it all away.

TV fans have been left outraged over the years when a hit series comes to the streaming platform before abruptly being cancelled, sometimes after just one season.

From beloved crime thrillers to superhero epics, fans have been scrambling to social media to beg Netflix for more episodes of their long-lost faves, even going as far as launching petitions for their cause.

Alas, these pleas go unheard leaving us to lament what could have been.

Critically acclaimed shows and hidden gems have all called prey to the Netflix graveyard – and these are 14 series many want to see resurrected for our screens.

Mindhunter

Netflix closed the case on this beloved show (Picture: Netflix)

David Fincher’s crime serial, about two FBI agents (Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany) working in the Behavioural Science Unit in Virginia, offered a tense insight into the psychology of serial killers.

But despite plans for a third series the show abruptly ended after just two seasons, with Fincher hinting that Netflix had pulled the plug rather than the decision to end it being his. ‘I’m very proud of the first two seasons,’ the director told Forbes in 2023.

‘But it’s a very expensive show and, in the eyes of Netflix, we didn’t attract enough of an audience to justify such an investment’.

Given how many people want another series the audience may be larger than he thinks.

Lockwood & Co

Lockwood and Co disappeared from our screens after just one season (Picture: Netflix)

This supernatural thriller, set in an alternate Britain where teenage ghost-hunters are called in to protect adults from deadly spirits, made its debut in January 2023, only to disappear as quickly as it had arrived.

Yep, Netflix cancelled the show after just one series, with declining viewing figures blamed for the decision – and fans left livid.

‘I’m in my rabid fan era and I’m still salty about Netflix’s decision to cancel Lockwood & Co so more shade tweets to come,’ one person said at the time.

Another added: ‘I’m so sick of starting another show, getting attached to it, just for it to be cancelled. I really need someone to #SaveLockwoodandCo.’

The Irregulars

Loosely inspired by the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Irregulars centres on a group of teenagers living on the streets of Victorian London, who work for Sherlock Holmes’ sidekick Dr Watson solving increasingly supernatural crimes.

It debuted to decent reviews and even better viewing figures in 2021 – even beating Disney Plus’ The Falcon and The Winter Soldier in the ratings at one point – but still didn’t get a second series from Netflix, although no reason was given as to why.

To make matters worse the first season ended on a cliffhanger, with Sherlock Holmes (Henry Lloyd-Hughes) sent to another dimension with his partner Alice (Eileen O’Higgins).

Guess they’ll be stuck there forever then…

GLOW

The girls of GLOW didn’t get another round in the ring (Picture: Netflix)

Unlike some of the others on this list, GLOW – a fictionalised account of the real-life Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling in the 1980s – did get a fair crack of the whip, running for three seasons.

However, plans for more were shelved in 2020, with Netflix pulling the plug on a planned fourth series just weeks after it started filming.

Creators Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch blamed the decision on the pandemic. ‘COVID has killed actual humans,’ the pair said in a statement to Deadline.

‘It’s a national tragedy and should be our focus. COVID also apparently took down our show. Netflix has decided not to finish filming the final season of GLOW. We were handed the creative freedom to make a complicated comedy about women and tell their stories. And wrestle. And now that’s gone’

I Am Not Okay With This

We are not OK with this (Picture: Netflix)

Another graphic novel adaptation which didn’t take off, I Am Not Okay With This focused on teenager Sydney (Sophia Lillis) navigating the trials and tribulations of high school while dealing with her family, her budding sexuality and the sudden development of mysterious superpowers.

It ran for one series before getting the chop in 2020 – with the pandemic taking a lot of the blame.

Creator Jonathan Entwistle said: ‘We just realised that to Covid-proof the show was going to cost a lot more money. I do think when they were looking at all the finances, the show was more expensive than they figured it was worth doing’

The OA

Fans of this mystery drama have been clamouring for another series ever since it came to an end in 2019 – but all the #savetheOA hashtags in the world have sadly yet to result in another series.

The show, which stars Brit Marling as a young woman who disappears for seven years, only to return home with mysterious new abilities, remains so popular that even its cast has lamented its cancellation.

‘Pathetic this, we were all crying together, me and the creators,’ co-star Jason Isaacs previously told Sunday Brunch.

We live in hope that it may one day make a comeback.

Santa Clarita Diet

Nothing could revive this deadly show (Picture: Netflix)

Another show whose cancellation led to outrage from fans, Santa Clarita Diet stars Drew Barrymore as a real estate agent whose quiet life in the titular California city is turned upside down when she is accidentally turned into a zombie – complete with the inevitable taste for human flesh.

News of the show’s cancellation came just after the third series was released on Netflix in March, leaving fans shocked – and leaving the series itself on a massive cliffhanger that will now never be resolved.

Unless they bring it back that is.

Teenage Bounty Hunters

Another one-season wonder, Teenage Bounty Hunters starred Maddie Phillips and Anjelica Bette Fellini as two school girls that happened to become overnight bounty hunters – only to land an assignment that fell a little too close to home.

We’ll never find out how things might have progressed though since the second series never materialised, leaving fans bereft.

‘What’s the point of even having a subscription if you’re just gonna keep cancelling all the good shows?’ one person commented at the time.

They have a point.

White Lines

Viewers loved this thriller, about a young woman (Laura Haddock) getting caught up in a whole heap of trouble after investigating her brother’s disappearance in Ibiza – but they’re not getting another helping.

Although no official reason has been given for the lack of second series, cast members have suggested that the show isn’t getting one due to the ending of the first series resolving all its loose ends.

‘Will there be a series two of White Lines? I don’t think so,’ one of its stars, Angela Griffin, explained in 2021.

‘My gut feeling is that it was left in a place where it is nicely tied up. I think that is where it is going to stay.’

Norsemen

Caption: Norsemen
Provider: Netflix

This Norwegian Viking parody might not be the best-known show on the streaming platform, but it still has plenty of fans who would love to see it return.

The show, set in the year 790, follows the lives of a group of Vikings living in the fictional village of Norheim, with day-to-day life unfolding to varying comedic degrees.

It was filmed in both Norwegian and English, with each scene of each episode filmed twice, to add to the fun.

But while three seasons were made, the Viking axe fell on the show in 2020, much to the annoyance of fans – who have even set up a petition to bring it back to screens

Jessica Jones

No amount of superpowers could keep this show going (Picture: Netflix)

Netflix lost a whole bunch of Marvel shows in 2019, with Jessica Jones – which starred Krysten Ritter as the eponymous ex-superhero turned private investigator – among those which faced the chop, three seasons after it began.

To make matters worse the show also vanished from Netflix altogether after Disney regained the license for them.

If you have Disney+ you can still watch this one, but a new series seems like an unlikely prospect at this stage.

Anne With An E

This Canadian drama based on Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classic novel Anne Of Green Gables, made it as far as three series before being axed – leaving fans of the show horrified.

A petition for a fourth series sparked over 1.7 million signatures on Change.org – while Canadian network CBC received so many messages on unrelated news posts from viewers begging for another series that they had to employ some judicial use of the block button.

Ultimately though, fans were unsuccessful as the much-longed-for fourth series has yet to materialise.

The Punisher

The Punisher was another Marvel show that faced the axe (Picture: Netflix)

Another casualty of the 2017 Marvel cull, The Punisher ran for just two series before facing the axe – with the suggestion at the time that viewing figures for Netflix’s Marvel shows were disappointing.

Jon Bernthal, who played the show’s main character, vigilante Frank Castle, took to Instagram with an emotional post at the time, saying: ‘To all who have served. All who know loss. All who love and understand Frank and his pain.’

As with other Marvel series, you can now catch it on Disney+.

Sense8

If you’re unfamiliar, Sense8 follows eight people around the globe who are linked telepathically and go searching for answers behind their connection.

It was a hit with viewers when it debuted in 2015 but lasted just two short seasons before vanishing for good – with the ever-present lack of viewing figures blamed.

Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos said at the time: ‘The audience was very passionate, but not large enough to support the economics of something that big, even on our platform’.

Given it’s been gone for seven years now, we sense even petitions won’t be bringing this one back.

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