Nowadays you get canceled by Netflix even faster than when you use the n-wordduring a session of the Congo commission. Most recent evidence: the Germanthriller ‘1899’, which was removed barely a month and a half after appearingon the streaming service. Why does Netflix get the ax so quickly?
Stephen WerbrouckFriday, January 6, 202311:06
“It is with a heavy heart that we must say that ‘1899’ will not be restarted,”they wrote Jantje Frisian and Baran bo Odar recently on Instagram. “Wewould have loved to complete this journey with a second and third season, aswe did with ‘Dark’. But sometimes things don’t go as planned.’ With that, thecurtain fell prematurely for a title that barely six weeks ago – ‘1899’appeared on November 17th – still seemed very promising. With horror series’Dark’, Friese and Bo Odar had made one of the most popular non-English seriesever on Netflix and ‘1899’ was completely in line with that previous hit: amysterious thriller that gradually becomes more and more complex, full ofstrange plot twists and hidden tips that should put the viewer on the trail ofthe solution.
‘1899’Image Netflix
That solution will not come, so that the end of the first season will onlybecome more frustrating. In ‘1899’ – spoiler alert for those who still want towatch the series – the crew of a ship sailing towards New York in the middleof the Atlantic Ocean in the late 19th century finds another boat that hadbeen missing for four months. This leads to a lot of bizarre events of whichit is never entirely clear whether they are real or not, until the finaleshows that ‘1899’ actually takes place in the future and was a computersimulation to show an astronaut who is on board a spaceship in a deep sleepwas sounding awake. But why she had to awaken somewhere in the vastness ofspace we will never know.
28 days to perform
The fact that Friese and bo Odar were told after a month and a half that theydid not have to continue working has to do with something that Netflix 28 dayviewership calls. The company closely monitors how often a title is clickedand how often it is viewed. The most important criterion for renewing a seriesis one number: the number of subscribers who have watched a season within themonth, or 28 days. ‘1899’ was a modest hit – in Belgium it was the mostwatched series for six days in a row – but the ’28 day viewership’ was clearlynot high enough to warrant a second season. And so the series met the same sadfate as, for example, ‘Teenage Bounty Hunters’, which was removed in thesummer of 2021 after barely four weeks, leaving fans with a hangover and ahuge cliffhanger.
The discontinuation of ‘1899’ may symbolize how Netflix has evolved over theyears. At its inception, the streaming giant presented itself as the “anti-TVchannel,” luring screenwriters and TV makers with promises of creative freedomand the ability to take risks. But the bigger Netflix got, the harder it wasto keep that up and with new subscribers no longer coming in as numerous asbefore – last year Netflix even saw more people leave than came for the firsttime – freedom is increasingly being traded in for safety and predictability.There are many more series aiming for the lowest common denominator and fewertitles for niche audiences, and the latter have less time to grow. After all,it is cheaper to keep launching new series in the hope that one of them willbecome a hype than to renew an existing title that has not really caught on.
Netflix’s Achilles’ heel
At the same time, the inglorious end of ‘1899’ is proof that binge-watching isnot only one of Netflix’s assets, but also an Achilles’ heel. Being able towatch something at your own pace has advantages, but it ensures that everyoneis in a different rhythm and it is therefore more difficult to discuss aseries with others. But today’s success largely depends on all the noise thatarises online. Especially for a series that revolves around mysteries andbuilds towards a grand finale, weekly episodes are an advantage: just look athow busy the second season of ‘The White Lotus’ has been recently or how’Lost’ – an obvious source of inspiration for ‘1899’ – set fire to theinternet every week at the time.
The White Lotus S2Picture HBO
It is difficult to say whether ‘1899’ could have become a hype if the firstseason had not come online in one go. Still, it should be thought-provokingthat of all the ingredients that have helped Netflix win over the past decade,binge-watching is the only one that hasn’t caught up with the competition. Nowa vicious circle threatens for series like ‘1899’. Fans of the genre will beless inclined to jump into a series now that they know there’s a good chancethe all-explaining reveal will never happen. But that only makes it harder forthe next mystery thriller to collect enough viewers to survive.