- 2 days ago
These TV shows just got the chop.
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00:00The world of TV has been in something of a precarious state in recent years.
00:05With the rise of streaming and the decline of linear TV,
00:08it's become ever less clear what the metric for success is,
00:12and in turn, much harder to predict if a given show will be cancelled or renewed.
00:17And so even seemingly safe popular shows aren't really immune to the scythe of cancellation.
00:23So, with that in mind, I'm Ellie for WhatCulture,
00:25and let's take a look at the following TV shows which just got cancelled.
00:29Starting with Yellow Jackets.
00:31At the start of October, Paramount announced that its hit mystery thriller series Yellow Jackets
00:37was set to conclude after its upcoming fourth season.
00:41This proved to be a somewhat surprising announcement,
00:44considering that Yellow Jackets was initially said to have a five-season plan,
00:49and as recently as 2023, co-creator Ashley Lyle confirmed that this plan was still firmly on track.
00:56The show's recent third season also became its most watched yet,
01:00seemingly signalling that it was safe and would most likely make it to five,
01:04even with the general fan response to the show slipping considerably in its second and especially third seasons.
01:11Some have pointed to the Paramount Skydance merger and associated regime changes,
01:16as possibly being behind the show's premature conclusion.
01:19But at least this pre-announced ending will give the creators time to provide fans with a concrete climax to
01:25the story.
01:26Whether a single season is enough runway to tie off the many messy narrative strands left flailing around,
01:32however, remains to be seen.
01:34But here's hoping.
01:36Do you also ever find yourself locked in the existential crisis of wanting to watch the 1985 classic Witness starring
01:43Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis,
01:45but you don't know where to begin?
01:47Because say...
01:49Me from the future?
01:51You dummy.
01:52If you wanted to watch the 1985 classic Witness directed by Peter Weir,
01:57all you had to do was sign up to Paramount Plus using the link in the video description.
02:01This limited time offer means it's just $2.99 for two months.
02:05That's $5 off the Essential tier and $10 off Paramount Plus with Showtime,
02:11which includes shows like Twin Peaks and Dexter Original Sin.
02:16Witness and Twin Peaks?
02:17Sounds like the perfect remedy for those cold winter nights we're having.
02:21I'm gonna go sign up right now and ignore this grave violation of the laws of time and space.
02:26Sounds like a plan.
02:28Countdown.
02:29The enormous popularity of Supernatural and The Boys star Jensen Ackles made it easy to believe that his fandom would
02:37follow him pretty much anywhere
02:38and that his new Amazon crime series Countdown would be an easy hit.
02:43But Countdown quickly slid its way down Amazon Prime Video's top 10 TV shows,
02:48likely aided by mixed to negative reviews, with most critics dismissing it as dull and cliched.
02:53So it wasn't a total surprise when Amazon announced Countdown's cancellation in early October,
02:59which Ackles called a bummer, citing how much he enjoyed working on the series with the cast and crew.
03:05For many outside of the actors' immediate fandom, though,
03:08this cancellation may well have been the first they'd actually heard of the show,
03:12which seemed to receive a bit of a soft marketing push during its single-season run.
03:17Either way, there just wasn't much enthusiasm for Countdown, even from those who did watch it.
03:23Dexter Original Sin
03:25The seemingly insatiable nature of the Dexter fandom ensured that, despite the IP's continual stumbles,
03:33the recent prequel series Dexter Original Sin became Showtime's most streamed premiere ever,
03:38and performed well enough throughout its run that Paramount renewed it for a second season back in April.
03:43However, almost five months later, at the end of August, the network changed tack,
03:48announcing that the planned season two actually wouldn't be going ahead.
03:52This was said to be a strategic decision following the Paramount-Skydance merger,
03:57to focus on the Dexter sequel series Dexter Resurrection, starring Michael C. Hall,
04:02which posted stronger viewing figures than Original Sin, and has itself been renewed for a second season.
04:07Dexter's showrunner, Clyde Phillips, minced no words in criticising the network's handling of the un-renewal,
04:14which left him forced to inform the writers and cast himself of the unexpected cancellation.
04:18Phillips added that he had several years of material mapped out for Original Sin,
04:23which will now presumably never see the light of day.
04:26Goosebumps
04:28A new take on R.L. Stine's legendary Goosebumps children's horror novels should have been a lucrative slam dunk for
04:35Disney.
04:36But things didn't quite work out that way.
04:38Though some fans criticised the first season for ditching the expected anthology format and telling a serialised season-long story,
04:45it at least performed well on Disney Plus by releasing during 2023's spooky season.
04:50For reasons that will only be clear to Disney executives, though, the second season was puzzlingly dropped all at once
04:56this past January,
04:58while receiving bafflingly little promotion from the Mouse House itself.
05:02And so it wasn't exactly a massive shock when Disney confirmed Goosebumps' cancellation in August.
05:07Though no reason was given, it's incredibly easy to believe that the viewership fell off a cliff with the little
05:12effort Disney made to make an event out of the second season.
05:15However, series producer Sony Pictures Television is intending to shop the series around and consider other prospects for more televisual
05:23Goosebumps content.
05:25So regardless of whether this iteration of Goosebumps is resurrected or not, the IP probably won't stay on ice for
05:31too long.
05:32The Waterfront
05:34The Waterfront is a crime drama series from screen creator Kevin Williamson,
05:39which starred the likes of Holt McCallany, Melissa Benoist, Maria Bello, and Topher Grace, and landed on Netflix back in
05:46June.
05:46Though the show received mixed reviews, it nevertheless opened at the number one spot on release weekend,
05:52and impressively repeated number one placement three weeks in a row,
05:56while also managing to stay in Netflix's English-language top 10 TV shows for five weeks.
06:02Surprising it was then when Netflix confirmed that The Waterfront wouldn't be returning for a second season at the end
06:07of August.
06:08And according to Deadline, this was motivated by both the show's viewership and its completion rate.
06:14In recent years, much has been written about the importance of completion rates in determining whether Netflix renews a show
06:21or not.
06:21But because this figure isn't publicly available, we're generally left to either speculate,
06:26or as is the case with The Waterfront, rely on insider sources.
06:30Williamson certainly didn't need long to bounce back though,
06:33as he was already deep in post-production on Scream 7 at the time of the cancellation,
06:38which will be the first film in the legendary horror series that he's directing.
06:43Creepshow
06:44Back in 2019, horror streaming service Shudder revived the classic horror anthology movie franchise Creepshow as a TV series.
06:52And though the general reception was wildly mixed throughout its run,
06:56the low-budget production and enthusiastic nature of the horror fandom seemingly kept it chugging along.
07:02Creepshow's fourth season was released all at once for viewers to binge at their own leisure in October 2023,
07:08after which word went suspiciously quiet on the prospect of a fifth season.
07:13Shudder basically went completely radio silent on the matter throughout 2024 and most of 2025,
07:19as fans clamoured for answers, until Shudder sources finally confirmed to Variety back in September that the show wouldn't be
07:26returning for season 5.
07:28The source added that the show was only ever planned for a four-season run,
07:32a claim that's not entirely easy to believe,
07:35but Shudder did at least cushion the heartbreak by announcing that a box set containing all four seasons would release
07:41in November.
07:43Butterfly
07:45Butterfly is a spy thriller based on the graphic novel of the same name,
07:49which launched on Amazon back in August.
07:52The series stars the ever-great Daniel Dae Kim as a former spy whose shadowy past starts catching up with
07:58him.
07:58Though reviews were firmly mixed,
08:00it nevertheless landed the number one spot on Amazon Prime Video's US Top 10 and number two globally on release
08:07week,
08:08seeming to suggest that the show was a solid performer with subscribers.
08:11But in early October, the streamer confirmed that they wouldn't be moving forward with a second season.
08:18And while no official reason was given,
08:20it's reasonable to assume that the viewership just wasn't high enough relative to the cost of producing the show,
08:26which was filmed on location in South Korea.
08:28It's an especially frustrating outcome for fans though,
08:31given that the first season ended on quite the agonising cliffhanger that will now never be resolved.
08:38And just like that.
08:40Though Sex and the City sequel series And Just Like That became HBO Max's most watched series debut in 2021,
08:47viewership for season two declined by 59%,
08:50and the most recent third season kept dropping further week on week.
08:55It certainly didn't help that the show's writing throughout its second and third seasons was widely criticised by fans,
09:00especially in the third. But even so, Sex and the City seemed to be enough of a marquee brand for
09:06HBO that it was basically beyond cancellation.
09:09But evidently not, as less than two weeks before season three was set to conclude,
09:14HBO Max confirmed that this would mark the end of the series.
09:18The abrupt nature of the announcement, so abrupt in fact that some of the cast hadn't yet found out,
09:23seemed to suggest the show had been cancelled, yet HBO framed it as an ending for the sake of saving
09:29face.
09:29Considering the messy and deeply unsatisfying nature of that final episode,
09:33it really didn't feel like much of an ending at all.
09:36It'll certainly be interesting to see if this really is the end for Carrie and her pals,
09:40or whether HBO will try again with another revival a little while later.
09:45FUBAR
09:47Netflix's spy comedy series FUBAR debuted in the summer of 2023.
09:51And while hardly great, it spent five weeks in the streamer's top ten,
09:55after amassing 11 million views during its release weekend.
09:58But the series' second season was rather unceremoniously dumped with little fanfare back in June.
10:04And with the consensus being that it failed to rectify the first season's slapdash writing and brutal pacing,
10:10it was embraced far less enthusiastically.
10:13FUBAR season two lasted just three weeks in the top ten,
10:16after landing just 2.2 million views in its launch weekend,
10:19marking an 80% drop in premiere viewership.
10:22The utter lack of discourse, good or bad, surrounding the show made it clear that it just failed to strike
10:27much of a chord with anyone.
10:29And so it was hardly surprising that Netflix quietly cancelled it at the end of August.
10:34When there's so much high-quality TV out there,
10:36aggressively mediocre, personality-devoid content like this just doesn't cut it.
10:41Even with Arnie front and centre.
10:47The global influence of 2010's documentary Catfish is something just about nobody could have seen coming.
10:53Despite being produced for a mere $30,000,
10:56it popularised the term catfishing in the worldwide lexicon,
11:00and proved successful enough to launch its own MTV reality series spin-off.
11:05Though there's a good chance you've heard of Catfish the TV show.
11:07Did you have any idea it was even still a thing?
11:09The show sees brothers Rel and Niamh Shulman attempt to help people deduce the true identity of their online romance.
11:17And after premiering way back in 2012,
11:19it shockingly had enough juice to produce more than 240 episodes over 9 seasons.
11:25Season 9 concluded in July 2024,
11:27but it wasn't until this past September that MTV confirmed Catfish had finally been cancelled.
11:33The reaction from many was simply disbelief that the show clung to life for so long,
11:38while also spawning five separate international editions.
11:41MTV have allowed the Shulmans to shop the show to other networks,
11:44so Catfish may well return in some form.
11:47But even if not, it's had quite the run, let's be honest.
11:51Catfish is completely unimaginable,
11:51so raccoon radar would take off all of the reasons it is hidden in one place.
11:51Catfish should be capsidized with no one piece of paper.
11:51so that's where the picture is.
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