After two seasons, Nextflix has canceled the family friendly, critically acclaimed, and (seemingly) quite popular series The Baby-Sitter’s Club. Worsening the blow to the show’s young fanbase, given the relative lack of television that takes early teens seriously, is the fact that we’ll never know exactly why it’s gone.
Streaming services have complicated and shadowy motivations when it comes to the shows they renew or cancel. Where a broadcast network might be looking almost exclusively at how viewership translates into advertiser revenue, a streamer is worried about how a show’s popularity translates into subscriptions. If a show isn’t drawing new subscribers, or isn’t generating the kind of passion that might lead fans to cancel if it weren’t around, viewership almost doesn’t matter. There’s also the fact that shows are increasingly competing internationally—as BSC creator Rachel Shukert told Vulture, “when your show does very well in North America, as ours does, as far as Netflix is concerned, pretty much everybody who’s going to have Netflix [in North America] has it. They’re looking to drive subscriber growth in other parts of the world.”
The bottom line: When something good gets cancelled in its prime, we’re left with best guesses, conjecture, and disappointment—particularly when the shows we love aren’t given the opportunity to wrap up their storylines. Paradoxically, this can only make viewers that much more reluctant to try something new, worried they’ll fall in love only to be left hanging yet again—which makes it even harder for unique shows to survive past a season or two. But if that’s the case, Netflix only has itself to blame for its reputation for canceling great shows a season or two in. Consider, as evidence, a baker’s dozen of series they dumped way too soon.