Netflix boss Ted Sarandos kicked up a hornet’s nest when he claimed that he’d never canceled an original series he deemed to be a popular one, which led to an outpouring of fury online given the sheer volume of fan favorites to have bitten the dust. Worryingly, though, Lockwood & Co. looks to be trending in the same direction as many of its fallen forebears.
Despite debuting on the Top 10 in dozens of countries in its opening weekend, the supernatural detective series is by no means guaranteed to be renewed for a second season, but one minor positive is that there were a lot of pessimists out there fully expecting the axe to fall on the very same day it premiered.
Creator and executive producer Joe Cornish has plans for two more seasons, but there’s a chance he might be getting a touch carried away based on the most recent data. Netflix’s own number-crunching offered that after debuting as the sixth most-watched film or television title through its first week of streaming, the freshest figures signal an alarming 61 percent drop in viewership.
Not to make it all doom and gloom, but that dip from week-to-week is on a par with The Imperfects, First Kill, Archive 81, and Half Bad: The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself, all of which coincidentally happen to be in-house fantasy exclusives that won vociferous online backing, only to be canceled after a single season.
There’s no harm in being proven wrong, but for now, the signs aren’t quite what you’d call encouraging.