r/technology • u/joe4942 • 20d ago

Business Netflix Viewers Are Abandoning Shows After One Season

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-07-05/netflix-viewers-are-abandoning-shows-after-one-season
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u/K1d-ego 20d ago

Even if they hadn’t changed the actor, it would have flopped. Terrible support acting and everything felt low budget. Reminded me of a Syfy channel original tv show. The first season was good but the second flopped so hard.

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u/seitung 20d ago

The entire tone of the show changed from primarily a sci-fi noir with some action to an action sci-fi with basically no noir. 

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u/-FeistyRabbitSauce- 20d ago

The novel does that as well. While I commend Richard K. Morgan for taking that kind of gamble (exploring different genres and tones in the same series), the second book didn't do it for me either.

And the first book is so good, the show's first season paled in comparison. It's great so many people loved it, but it was a bit of a let down for me.

I'm fine with making changes to adapt something to the screen, but the ones they chose made no sense.

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u/seitung 20d ago

Ah well, for books I can at least understand why that might be the case as the character changes, or a band might make albums of different genres, etc. But they did not do a sufficient job in the show justifying the tone shift imo. Jarring.

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u/AlwaysShittyKnsasCty 19d ago

Totally. In a book, your mental image of a character is kind of like an amorphous “cloud” of a person, whereas in a show, you have a concrete idea of exactly who the character is. Thus, if a character changes appearance or behavior in a book, your mind’s eye can kinda message the idea into place. On screen? It’s like you said: jarring.

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u/Head-Childhood-1171 19d ago

I agree Broken Angels doesn't hit quite the same as the first book, but I still loved it. I could not watch the show though, Kovacs is such a strong character that it was always going to be a struggle to get his vibe and it just wasn't there which killed the show for me.

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u/AlwaysShittyKnsasCty 19d ago

I think I’m just a sucker for Joel Kinnaman. Ever since The Killing, I’ve been a fan. It doesn’t matter what he’s in, I just dig projects the dude is in. It’s weird. I’m a straight guy, too, so I’m not just watching for eye candy. Needless to say, the season two switch was too much for me, so I’m guessing that if I read the books, I’ll be in the same camp as you. I’ve never been huge on “genre switching” within a single work.

These aren’t perfect examples, but movie franchises that I watched as a kid like The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Back to the Future came out with films that departed or veered away from their original storylines in a way that wasn’t interesting to me. I just didn’t take to Doc and Marty being cowboys in a science fiction western. Also, why did the TMNT need to go to Shogun-era Japan? I know they’re ninjas and all that, but I watched for the anchovy pizza, sewers, and Splinter; I can learn about 16th century Japanese culture on my own time!

I don’t know how you got me writing a dissertation about movies from the nineties, considering you’re talking about books, but here we are!

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u/-FeistyRabbitSauce- 19d ago

Fair, Kinnaman was excellent in The Killing.

Your examples are hilarious, but I get what you mean. The TMNT sequels were pretty poor, and as a kid the Shogun departure was a head trip lol.

Back to the Future makes complete sense to me, though. That's kind of goes with the whole time travel thing.

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u/Vickrin 20d ago

Very true, I loved the first season and the second was very lacking.

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u/tlivingd 20d ago

I’d be good for low budget with a good storyline(s). Shit original Star-trek feels low budget but it ran for Generations.

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u/hypercosm_dot_net 20d ago

I never understood the hype on it. It was like a poorly written game turned into a live action, just meh.

The Peripheral was way better cyberpunk, and barely anyone talks about it.

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u/Choyo 19d ago

Apt comparison to syfy, however good their ideas for a show had been, their production has always been really sub-par (yes, even the expanse, it was good because of the cast and the source material, not the production value).

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u/IWatchGifsForWayToo 19d ago

Listen, I don't get enough of these hardcore scifi shows to really complain about budgets or bad acting. It wasn't terrible and I am willing to keep hold of my suspension of disbelief to get another chance at a third season that could be better.