The Dark Crystal Prequel Series Coming To Netflix

[Christopher]

Netflix don't even hide their decision making process. It's more profitable for them to launch something new then to make more episodes of something older. (With certain exceptions like 'Lucifer'.)

Yes, because that's how capitalism works. Television is a business, not a charity. Why should a business "hide" the fact that it makes decisions based on profit? That's just how businesses operate. As Kai said, every commercial or subcription-funded broadcaster works that way. It always has.

Sure, used to be that shows build an audience, but truth is, for most shows, the longer they run, the more viewers abandon it, and the serialized format of today's shows keeps new viewers away.

The shows that succeed at building a profitable audience have always been the exception, as I said. Especially where SF/fantasy shows are concerned, because of the greater expense and the niche audience. When I was a kid in the '70s and '80s, it was rare for any genre show to last a full season, let alone more than 2-3. Serialization has nothing to do with it, because hardly any of those shows had any serial elements.

 

[Anwar]

Netflix don't even hide their decision making process. It's more profitable for them to launch something new then to make more episodes of something older. (With certain exceptions like 'Lucifer'.)

If I was making a show for them I wouldn't plan on more than three seasons and wouldn't end a season on a cliffhanger.

Most Netflix originals tend to make sure every season ends on a "Okay, if it ends here at least there's no crazy cliffhangers".

 

[StCoop]

Most Netflix originals tend to make sure every season ends on a "Okay, if it ends here at least there's no crazy cliffhangers".

Dark Crystal definitely didn't, though.

Another one is 'Lost In Space', which I'm kind of expecting to get the renewed then cancelled after all treatment. Season 3 has to pick up exactly where Season 2 left off but unless they're planning to recast Will Robinson he's suddenly going to be two years older and a lot taller...

 

[Christopher]

Oh, damn... it's been cancelled.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/dark-crystal-age-of-resistance-has-been-canceled-by-ne-1845132612

This has been a rotten week.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

Fuck.

 

[JD]

I double that fuck, I loved the first season and was really hoping we'd get more.
They did say they will continue the story, so I'm wonder if we might just end up with a comic. Boom! Studios has been doing a bunch of Dark Crystal comics, so it wouldn't be a problem for them. As much as I'd love to see it continue as a TV or streaming series, I can't really see anybody else wanting spend the time and money after it already failed on Netflix.

 

[Anwar]

Well darn.

At least we know how the show would've ended though.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Damnit, that really sucks! Right on the heels of the Emmy win, too.

I thought this might might have been COVID related, but it seems from the article that it was unlikely to get renewed even before that because of the costs.

This really, really sucks.

 

[Christopher]

Yup. For all that people want to find someone to blame or some insidious motive behind cancellations, 99 percent of the time it simply comes down to profit and loss, a show not getting high enough ratings to offset its cost. With a show as expensive and difficult to make as this, cancellation is really no surprise.

 

[137th Gebirg]

I am profoundly saddened by this. Oh, well. At least we got something after all those years. Now I just hope they do a BRD treatment of it, and it looks like there may be some graphic novel releases in the future to continue the story.

 

[Aragorn]

Netflix has a different method than regular TV. The number of eyeballs means nothing since there are no commercials. They only care about the new subscribers the show brings in. That's why so many of them don't last more than three seasons. They're not this great savior people make them out to be.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Netflix has a different method than regular TV. The number of eyeballs means nothing since there are no commercials. They only care about the new subscribers the show brings in. That's why so many of them don't last more than three seasons. They're not this great savior people make them out to be.

That's gotta be a bad metric in the long run. I mean, what if you have tons and tons and tons of subscribers who love all of the things they were already making and make even more of that great stuff, but it only brings in a certain amount of new people. You still have tons of people watching it, just not that many new people. I get why they're doing it that way, but it's a flawed metric.

 

[JD]

Yeah, that's bugged me since I first heard about it.

 

[Christopher]

I get why they're doing it that way, but it's a flawed metric.

Yeah, but what else are they gonna do? They make money from subscriptions, period. If they don't get more subscribers than they already have, they don't make more money and can't afford to make more shows.

 

[JD]

How do they tell what show or movies actually drew people to the service? They've got such a constant stream of new original shows and movies coming out that I don't see how they could possible tell exactly how many people which one brought in.
If they had a new season of Umbrella Academy coming out and then a new season of The Order a week later, and then a new season of Stranger Things a week after that, how would they know that a person signed up because of The Order and not the other two?

 

[cylkoth]

Probably by what a new subscriber chooses to watch first, how quickly they watch, and if they watch all the episodes.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Probably by what a new subscriber chooses to watch first, how quickly they watch, and if they watch all the episodes.

But if that was the case, why not gauge that with all subscribers?

Again, focusing on just new subscribers is a finite metric.

 

[cylkoth]

Total viewership, no doubt, is scrutinized when judging whether a show can be continued. The entertainment press seems to focus on the new subscriber angle so much, that it becomes what other people latch onto when discussing why a show gets cancelled.

But the longer a show runs, viewership tends to drop off, and if the costs go higher and higher each season, it becomes increasing harder to justify keeping it going. Sens8 cost $50 million for it's first season. Season 2 clocked in at a whopping $100 million...at that price, there was no way another season made financial... sense.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

It's disappointing to learn that this show has been cancelled.

I am getting worried about Umbrella Academy. There has been no news on the third season for months.

 

[Reverend]

On the one hand: BOOOOOO!

But on the other: I get that with Covid apparently not going away anytime soon, having several dozen people in cramped conditions working literally on top of each other for most of the day, for weeks and months on end would be unsafe, to say the least.

But still: BOOOOOOOO!