After delivering one of the biggest hits in the history of Netflix, the creators of Stranger Things prepared to depart for greener pastures. Before the final season of the hit show could release, though, the streamer locked down their production company for a couple of extra TV shows before they walked out the door, including the animated spinoff Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 and the horror series Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen. So far, the lightning-in-a-bottle success of Stranger Things hasn’t been replicated, but it seemed like the closest thing that could do it was the sci-fi series The Boroughs.
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Boasting an ensemble cast of actors that included Alfred Molina, Alfre Woodard, Geena Davis, Dee Wallace, and Bill Pullman, The Boroughs premiered less than a month ago from creators Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, and executive producers Matt and Ross Duffer, but now the series has joined the ranks of Netflix TV shows that have been cancelled after just one season. The news comes via Deadline, who reports that the axing of The Boroughs comes as a surprise, not only because of how quickly the decision was made after the premiere date but also because talks about renewal had already been happening at the streamer.
Netflix Cancels The Boroughs After One Season
According to the report about The Boroughs cancellation, not only was Netflix considering a renewal for the show, but they had even considered the idea of a two-season renewal with plans to maybe shoot Seasons 2 and 3 sequentially. As the trade notes, these ideas were floated before the show actually premiered. Even though a writer’s room had been assembled for Season 2 of the show, the series isn’t moving forward. There’s no word on if they’ll try to take the series to another platform.
Premiering on May 21, The Boroughs had a pretty soft “opening weekend” with Netflix’s own metrics confirming 5.6 million views in the first four days. The series leaped up to 9.5 million views in its first full week, falling to 3.7 million in week 3 and then 2 million in week 4. All told, The Boroughs has charted just over 20 million views in a month; for comparison’s sake to another title that premiered this year, the first half of Bridgerton Season 4 brought in 39.7 million views in its first four days, and that was with just four episodes.
Viewership that doesn’t clear an impressive threshold is one thing, but The Boroughs had a few other elements working against it. First, the series was an expensive genre one with a lot of special effects, though almost certainly not carrying the kind of price tag that Stranger Things did, which immediately made it a tougher show to justify. Second, the ensemble cast is made up of well-known and established actors. Though that made sense given the retirement community setting, it also meant actors that almost certainly weren’t cheap.
There’s another piece of The Boroughs being cancelled that makes it shocking, which is the show ending with a bit of a cliffhanger. Though the larger story of the series was resolved, there’s a tease in the final moments of the last episode about where the creators intended to take things. In the episode, Alfred Molina’s Sam looks at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, only to see it glitch like TV static, teasing that his journey in the series will have lasting effects and setting up the next story. Unfortunately, that story won’t be told.
