Netflix Early Cancels Another YA Series That Was Part of a Long-Running Model

Another day, another Netflix cancellation, and it was easy to see that it had come a long way. Netflix has canceled Half Bad: The Bastard Son and The Devil Himself, the oddly named YA series about a witch’s son who hit the bottom of the top 10 list and is in rapid decline. It’s dead after a single season, and it’s definitely killing YA and teen-focused series after just a season or two as part of the long-standing Netflix tradition.

Bastard Son and The Devil Himself are also prime examples of quality that doesn’t really matter when it comes to making those decisions. The show received a pretty high rating of 93% from critics and 92% from viewers, which suggests that despite some quality generalizations about the YA series, it’s actually very good. But in the end, Netflix wants views and failed to do so. It’s probably due in part to its weird title that makes it sound like some sort of Rob Zombie horror movie, but also probably because Netflix just didn’t get enough publicity to elevate a series that was actually pretty good.

I’m not exaggerating when I say this is part of a long-standing pattern. When I speculated a few weeks ago on whether Warrior Nun would be renewed for season 3, I quoted Netflix’s long history of killing YA and teen-centric shows before they had a chance to fit their stories into any meaningful capacity:

• First Kill (YA vampire drama)
• Cursed (YA fantasy drama)
• The Babysitter’s Club (highly rated teen drama)
• Daybreak (YA post-apocalyptic drama)
• Spinning Out (teen skating drama)
• Insatiable (YA crime comedy/drama)
• The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (YA witch drama)
• I’m Not Okay With This (teen superhero drama)
• The Society (YA science fiction drama)
• Teen Bounty Hunters (teen crime comedy/drama)
• The Order (YA magician drama)
• Destiny: Winx Saga (YA fairy drama)
• Flaws (YA superhero drama)
• The Midnight Club (teen horror drama)

Now we can add The Bastard Son to that list (I’ve also added The Midnight Club since I last wrote this). Over the years, very few shows like this have managed to elude Netflix’s hangman’s ax. Shadow and Bone at least lived to see season 2. And I think you can think of Stranger Things as the most successful youth-centered drama.

The problem with what Netflix continues to do here is that it creates a graveyard of unfinished shows that are probably mostly not worth watching, as almost all of them will end up in the abyss or with their stories unfinished. It devalues ​​hundreds of hours of content, and that’s why many people don’t give a show like Bastard Son a chance in the first place, as there seems to be an 80% chance of it being killed and ending unsatisfactorily. Netflix needs to rethink some things here.

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