Six Years Later, Netflix Subscribers Are Still Begging for This Show to Be Finished

Being an avid fan of any TV show is tough these days. From extended production delays to lackluster series finales, devoting years of your life to a show can sometimes feel like a crap shoot. Just ask Netflix subscribers — the streaming giant has garnered a reputation for being ruthless with the cancellation button. Santa Clarita Diet, Dead Boy Detectives, and Lockwood & Co. are just a few examples of shows that Netflix killed off a little too soon. But it feels like The OA is the one cancelled show that scorned the most fans. The OA ran for two seasons before being unexpectedly canceled by Netflix in 2019. The abrupt cancellation left fans with many unresolved questions and ignited an ongoing campaign to revive the show. Six years later, fans of The OA have still not given up hope for the show to be given a proper ending.

Created by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, The OA blends elements of science fiction, fantasy, and supernatural themes. The show follows Prairie Johnson (Marling), a young blind woman who mysteriously disappears for seven years. When she returns, she has regained her sight and refers to herself as “The OA” (Original Angel). Refusing to explain her experiences to her adoptive parents or the authorities, she instead assembles a small group of strangers who she entrusts with the secrets behind her disappearance. And you can bet she has a closet full of them.

Never Gonna Give You Up

With an 84% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, The OA might not have set the world on fire with historic award-season runs, but the show struck a chord with a passionate fan base. Despite that, it couldn’t escape the chopping block. While many pointed to poor viewership numbers, the facts of that argument don’t exactly line up. Four years after The OA was cancelled, the show still managed to pull in its fair share of viewers. From January 2023 to June 2023, the show scored 24 million hours viewed. Again, while those numbers didn’t set the world on fire either, it proved that fans of The OA were sticking around.

In fact, fans still have not given up hope for the show to come back from the dead. In 2019, one diehard fan started an online petition to bring the show back. That petition has collected over 8,000 signatures throughout the years. But that’s not all. Here in 2025, fans of the show won’t quit on their beloved series. One supporter of The OA even took to the Netflix subreddit in order to have their voice heard. And they weren’t alone in wanting a chance to have all of their questions answered. But the show’s steep price tag might just prevent that from happening. The OA was not a cheap show to make, and Netflix executives simply didn’t think that the show was worth keeping around for another three planned seasons.

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Never Gonna Let You Down

In a July 2024 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, The OA star Brandon Perea offered up his optimistic take on the situation. “I’m one of those people that has a feeling it’s not over,” Perea admitted. “I think they have a way to continue the story, which I have no idea about, but I’m down and I’m willing to be a part of The OA whenever it’s time to come back around.” Perea points to the many loose ends from the show as the reason he remains hopeful for a chance at closure. “It just feels like there are some chapters that we’ve got to close that aren’t closed yet.”

According to Batmanglij, he and Marling were actually approached by Netflix with an opportunity to wrap up the show with a self-contained movie. But the logistics simply never lined up for the two creators.

“The OA ending was unexpected to me, but they did try to get us to wrap it up with a movie and we said no,” Batmanglij told The Hollywood Reporter in a November 2023 interview. “It would force us to bring the three seasons into one and close it up, and then you could outsource it to Max or Hulu or wherever. You can do so much with it if it’s finished. This idea of all these unfinished homes littering their platform, I just don’t see the economics of it.”

Whether Netflix ever brings back the show or not, it’s obvious that fans of The OA aren’t going away any time soon. It also appears that Batmanglij and Marling remain committed to telling their story in their own way, so maybe one day the wait will be worth it.