Another day, another Netflix axing. In what is becoming a pattern for many one-season series that arrive on the streaming service, Netflix has decided to terminate Dash & Lily after only one season on the air.
What’s strange about this one? The decision was made after nearly a year of deliberation by the subscription streaming service.
Dash & Lily was a holiday smash for the streaming service. The show depicted a couple of young individuals conversing through a notepad, trading dares, and other activities. It was based on a young adult novel of the same name.
The show has achieved a coveted 100 percent rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes (though it is worth noting the audience score was a little lower for the series). It was also nominated for Daytime Emmys. Regardless, it appears that the series’ viewership was inadequate for the service to commit to Season 2.
If you saw Dash & Lily when it initially aired, it would have been in November of 2020. The program had a Christmas theme, so the timing was perfect, but it’s strange that we’re just now learning of the show’s termination in October of 2021, a little over a year later.
The news was broken by TV Line, however, there was no explanation for why Netflix opted to discontinue the show.
No news from Netflix is sometimes good news. The subscription streaming service occasionally loves to surprise consumers with release information just a few days before fresh originals are released.
Combine that with the fact that Dash & Lily had additional source material to pull from (there are three books) and series creator Austin Abrams had stated he’d signed contracts to possibly create more, and I’d have thought Season 2 was in the works. In fact, he told Popsugar last winter:
Yes, I’ve already signed a few contracts, so I’m fully committed. I’m not sure what the strategy is, nor do I know what I’d like to see. They’d probably want it to be in the spirit of the second book.
It is not the first time that Netflix has cancelled a popular show after only one season. Both The Irregulars, a show about adolescents working for Dr. John Watson of Sherlock Holmes renown, and Jupiter’s Legacy, a superhero show starring Josh Duhamel, were canceled.
Immediately after all those two layoffs, the streaming service reportedly canceled Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!, a comedy starring Jamie Foxx.
Fans are frequently taken aback when Netflix cancels a show. It’s worth noting, though, that Netflix’s plans for original shows deviate significantly from the traditional TV paradigm. Traditional networks and cablers will frequently order a pilot, and if the pilot is successful, the network will order the first season of a series.
Netflix foregoes the pilot phase completely and instead commits to a whole season of a program. This is fantastic news because Dash & Lily fans were treated to eight complete episodes in Season 1. Unfortunately, this means that a lot of Netflix programming only gets one season.
