Netflix has canceled its supernatural teen drama series First Kill, a cheeky show that follows star-crossed Juliette (a teenage vampire) and Calliope (a teenage monster hunter) and leans heavily into Romeo and Juliet-style weirdness, no less. Months since its debut on June 10th. The cancellation, Deadline reported on Tuesday, prompted an immediate outcry from fans.
First Kill, while not a critical success, found a large audience among people who tuned in to a quirky vampire story that centered on black characters. So why was it canceled after just one season, and why is the Internet all over it?
What Netflix has said about First Kill’s cancellation
Deadline, citing unnamed sources, reported that Netflix canceled the fan favorite after one season because it “didn’t have the longevity of most Netflix hits.”
Historically, the ratio of viewership to cost has driven Netflix’s decisions about whether to cancel or renew. First Kill received a huge fan following: While Netflix doesn’t share many of its metrics, First Kill spent three weeks on its global Top 10 TV list, with 97. This may interest you : Prime Video and Salt & Straw collaborate on limited-run flavors inspired by Lord of the Rings: The Rings.66 million hours watched in that time alone.
First Kill fans criticize Netflix for a pattern of cancelling queer-led shows
Fans were quick to criticize Netflix for axing First Kill, noting that it’s far from the first show with romantic relationships between women to be canceled by the streamer. To see also : The 7 Best New Movies Streaming on Netflix, Hulu, and Prime Video This Week (July 4-9). Other titles that have suffered the same fate: Everything Sucks, I Am Not Okay With This, Teenage Bounty Hunters, One Day at a Time and Sense8.
The cancellation of First Kill led to the hashtag #CancelNetflix, which was trending Wednesday morning.
Fans of First Kill were quick to point out Netflix’s renewal of Heartstopper, the British coming-of-age gay romance series. Heartstopper, which saw 53.46 million hours while in the world’s Top 10 TV list — nearly half of First Kill — was renewed for two more seasons. As one fan said, “we’re not comparing First Kill to Heartstopper, we’re comparing how Netflix treats mlm-based shows and how they treat their wlw shows.”
How First Kill‘s creators have responded
On Instagram, show creator Victoria Schwab called the day she found out she was getting her first TV project for a full season one of the best days of her life. On the same subject : Netflix is cutting even bigger than you think (Bloom).
“But that doesn’t mean this, the day it was canceled, is the worst,” Schwab wrote. “Because the lack of a second season does not erase the first one. It happened, I saw a great team of writers start the thread, I saw a group of talented actors bring my characters to life.’
For their part, Hook and Lewis also shared tender tributes to their characters on Instagram.
“Connecting with Juliette so much means more to me than words can say,” Hook wrote. “Thank you to all who love & He helped our special show. I love you forever, Jules”.
“Forever honoured. Forever grateful,” Lewis wrote. “Knowing that this show has touched so many of you is all I could ask for. Thank you for letting me portray so many of your beautiful truths through Cal.
