This was brutal, even by the standards of the world’s top streaming company, which is known for its cold, data-driven, unsentimental series cancellation policies and practices
In just the last week, Netflix cancelled three shows: Victorian-set, steampunk-styled youth drama The Irregulars; The Last Kingdom, a BBC acquisition based on writer Bernard Cornwell’s The Saxon Stories novel series; and The Duchess, a six-part series from British comedian Katherine Ryan that debuted in September.
Among the trio, The Irregulars is perhaps the most surprising Netflix cancellation, given that the eight-part series about a group of young Londoners who band together to save their city and the world was the most streamed show in the U.S. for the week of March 22-28, amassing 643 million minutes of combined domestic viewing, according to Nielsen. Debuting on March 26, The Irregulars garnered 424 million viewing minutes in its first three days.
However, Reelgood, a startup that directs users on where to find shows on the various streaming platforms, found that The Irregulars didn’t perform as well over time compared to other Brit-themed original shows on Netflix. Reelgood chart comes after the annoying video below:
As for The Last Kingdom, the series debuted on BBC back in 2015, with Netflix picking it up in 2018 with the debut of the third season. The fifth season is set to debut on Netflix later this year, but there will not be a sixth.
Meanwhile, The Duchess, which is focused on the challenging life of a single London mom, did not survive beyond its first six episodes. Ryan told fans earlier via Vicki Pattinson’s The Secret to … podcasts that the show simply didn’t have the numbers.
