Up until now, Netflix‘s Away was looking like yet another success story for the platform. Sure, it didn’t set critics on fire, but soon after its release, it became the most popular show on the streaming site and the future seemed bright. The series has just hit a critical mission failure, though, as Deadline is reporting that it’s been cancelled after only one season.
It’s a curious move, but Netflix obviously has access to information that we don’t. How could a show that’s topping the charts and that spent several weeks in the Top 10 Nielsen viewership rankings across all streaming services be a flop, though? Well, one reason might be that the company knows that while a lot of people began watching the first season, many of them didn’t stick with it to the final episode. If that’s the case, despite viewers contributing to the show’s high ratings, a second run is unlikely to tempt them back.
Another factor is undoubtedly the budget. Away isn’t a cheap production, with its space setting and impressive cast costing a pretty penny. Thing is, the first season predominantly took place on board the spaceship, meaning they were working with an enclosed set. By the finale, though, they’d landed on Mars and any new episodes would be set on the red planet. That probably means location shoots, the construction of new sets and possibly more complex action scenes, resulting in higher production costs that may not have proved financially viable (as well as running the risk of covering the same ground as Ridley Scott’s The Martian).
All that aside, Away‘s story being unresolved is going to be exceptionally annoying to fans who became invested in the characters. The finale presented a nice image of international cooperation that felt needed in this climate and I’d have liked to have seen where the narrative would have gone. But that now isn’t going to happen and that’s certainly a real shame.