A multi-generational, Cuban-American remake of Norman Lear’s classic comedy maintained a fervent fan base of critics and everyday viewers alike. It broke barriers, providing a necessary comfort to a demographic that is rarely afforded the opportunity to see their stories told with such poignancy and care, and it was a relatable sojourn for all who tuned in over the course of three seasons.
Despite that, Netflix has chosen to cancel its original series One Day At A Time, citing a lack of viewership as the cause. In a rare move, Netflix took to Twitter to directly address the cancellation:
After taking a few more beats to thank the cast and crew, the streaming service attempted to soothe the sting that fans who, at one time, “felt seen or represented” are undoubtedly feeling.
This comes after diligent campaigning from fans, the cast, celebrity viewers, and even co-creator Gloria Calderón Kellett, who advised early on that streaming numbers would ultimately determine the show’s fate. But since Netflix continues to withhold streaming metrics from the general public, it’s hard to determine whether or not those efforts were in vain.
“It’s been a great honor to work with the legendary Norman Lear on One Day at a Time,” Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos says in a statement. “I’ve personally spoken with Norman, and co-creators Gloria Calderón Kellett and Mike Royce, to express my gratitude to them, all the writers, the dedicated crew and the cast including the brilliant Justina Machado and dazzling Rita Moreno for creating a series with such humor, heart and humanity.”
If there is even a shred of hope to glean from this, it’s that the series’ producer, Sony Pictures, is reportedly shopping the series elsewhere, and the cancellation does come at a time when shows are being saved more often by willing networks. With a passionate cast and a fandom that isn’t quite ready to say goodbye, maybe this family has a fighting chance at a new home.
[Via Variety]
94 Comments
ODAAT was one of the only reasons I have kept my Netflix subscription. I’m not surprised by this news – and the last episode felt like a complete wrapup of the show with a very gentle little teaser at the end for a possible fourth season – but I’m disappointed (especially as I felt the last season really wasted Penelope/Justina Machado in a big way). And it really tells you the lie that is Netflix quality television. They keep shows that glorify teenage suicide, shows that employ alleged sexual predators, keep shows that encourage a romance between a young gay black man and the young white man who subjects him to racist attacks and spits on him, yet they have no time for this show.Sad.
“…keep shows that encourage a romance between a young gay black man and the young white man who subjects him to racist attacks and spits on him”Which show is this?
[spoilers]pretty sure it refers to Sex Education, where Eric starts hooking up with the dumb bully jock towards the end of the season.
And as always, context matters. Adam is a self-loathing closet case that was jealous that Eric had the guts to openly express himself while he on the other hand felt empty with all of his relationships. That scene, though clearly meant for shock value, at least sorta developed on that. However, the finale gives the impression that Adam is being written off the show. If that’s true, that scene comes off as very gross and pointless. We won’t know for sure till season 2 drops. I just hope they give Eric something to do besides being Otis’ sidekick.
I can’t see a scene that actually uses “He Hit Me And It Felt Like A Kiss” for a romantic moment as anything but desperate for shock value rather than character development.
Sex Education.
We’ll always have Bojack……
The show made me get misty eyed every season finale and like a show with one of the only “real” families on TVGo to hell netflix.
booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.can I choose my own adventure to watch season 4 of ODAAT?
Very sad, ODAAT is a great and incredibly FUNNY series. And Rita Moreno is never not amazing.But I wonder what this means for all series about minorities (I was thinking also about Sense8). Do majorities (whatever that means) don’t watch them? Is it a mistake advertising a series because it has it has “great values” and not because its artistic quality? Every time someone told me I had to watch ODAAT (and I did it already) it was because it is “important”. What about simply saying it is the best sitcom made in the last 5 or 10 years?
Countdown to when they cancel GLOW right after the next season airs because we all know this is happening.
They very nearly cancelled GLOW after Season 1, but then it started receiving awards, and someone said “hold on a minute.”But lately Netflix seems to be capping critically acclaimed shows at 3 seasons, which is…worrying.it’s the reverse Marie Kondo method: “if it brings people joy, throw it out.”
I was stunned to hear that Netflix almost cancelled GLOW after one season. What the hell is up with them
But lately Netflix seems to be capping critically acclaimed shows at 3 seasons, which is…worrying.
Seasons 3 & 4 are typically when the costs of a show go up by a noticeable amount (such as when actors renegotiate contracts).
Production companies/studios are sometimes willing to take a bit of a loss or break even on first run rights knowing they will make it up on DVD sales and possibly syndication. There are typically no DVD sales or syndication deals for most Netflix “Originals” so the shows need to hit the right numbers with the right audiences or the cost simply isn’t justified (there are exceptions for media and awards darlings that generate lots of free advertising, justifying their cost, and shows where cancellation could bring political backlash).What Netflix should do is get into the daily soap opera game. 5 new episodes a week that can keep people coming back daily or binging each weekend would be great for them. Also the lower cost/expectations for a soap would work well with their revenue model.
You mean unpopular shows being cancelled? Shocking.
But Allison Brie’s boobs!
Well, if GLOW has closure I’m fine with that. I love GLOW but don’t see the need for nine seasons it. With some of these niche shows (American Vandal, for example) just existing seems victory enough, better to go out on strong instead of wearing out their welcome. ODAAT hopefully will end up somewhere else, it’s a show that really ought to go on a while longer. I would imagine they’d at least want enough episodes for syndication.
Hot take: MOST shows should be cancelled after season three…four tops. Not many show runners can keep the momentum going, and/or most storylines run out of steam. I LOVE Glow but if it only goes one more season, that’s OK. It’ll go out on top and the people attached can go on to make more awesome things. Honestly, I think this is the way TV should work. Make something great, end it before you get bored, and go make something else.
There are shows with minorities that are popular with white viewers. This didn’t seem to be one of them. Comedy in general has a high bar if it’s anything but the most generic output, especially on Netflix. I don’t think that advertising the show for it’s ‘values’ was a mistake because that was pretty much all they had. Saying “this is a great show!” didn’t do anything. The show also got little to no awards recognition, even with some wonderful performances and great writing. Sad to say if they hadn’t pushed the “important” element they likely would not have made it past one season.
I don’t think that advertising the show for it’s ‘values’ was a mistake because that was pretty much all they hadI don’t agree. It had good and funny scripts, a great lead in Justina Machado, the always funny Stephen Tobolowsky and, please, RITA MORENO.
And they did a lot of publicity featuring Rita Moreno. They sold a lot on her name. It’s just that this and the quality itself weren’t enough, so they also leaned in on the importance and social values aspects.
Fam, listen to the WTF with Ms. Moreno. The racism toward her own people is astounding, won’t date Latinos. Again, there are white Latinos and then there are people like Rosario Dawson, Yalitza Aparicio, Celia Cruz and on and on that are actually folks with Native and/or Afro Latino blood. Which fine, sell this as Hispanic or Spanish speaking but Latino implies that there is mixed blood and a look that resembles more La La than Christina. But Christina can cape, with no question. And since Cubans have the history they do, Americans don’t question a dude like Rubio and his patent lies about when and how his family immigrated here we get a neo-liberal woke show like ODAAT. Or why Che gets hate but a dude literally killed hundreds of people and was supported by the right-wing in the US, Luis Posada Carriles. Or the Bay of Pigs. Wet Foot-Dry Foot. Plenty of things they glossed over and the shit wasn’t that funny when you take into account the glossing over, the lack of color on the show, it was a hard sell to mad folks who aren’t cool with the pandering and glossing. Cynical at worst, myopic at best is how I’d characterize the marketing and making of the show.
Couldn’t have been that wonderful
The show consists of white Latinos, like people with Spanish Blood but zero Native. I watched the first season and it grated on my politics because there was this seen where they take in an undocumented child and Justina’s character just glossed over the wet foot-dry foot policy and how Cuban’s have a different relationship with the US than most of the rest of Latin America. Also, the Canadian undocumented immigrant who wore the Che shirt and how terrible and evil that is but no in-depth understanding or talk about why Latin Americans have the relationship they do with the US, the changing landscape and how and why they got to the US and when. I didn’t watch the rest of the series because that glossing. Latinos have race problems too like saying someone is beautiful because they got piel blanca or jokes about Indigenous genocide. I felt the show was about marketing white Latinos and packaging that up as diversity because it a cynical way to sell art and so I don’t think show was as bout it as mostly white critics are claiming.
I appreciate your perspective. It helps explain some of the reasons people weren’t fond of the show.
“There are shows with minorities that are popular with white viewers. This didn’t seem to be one of them.”This is based on 1) you knowing the demographics of the audience, which no one does, since they won’t release any numbers and 2) white people mattering as much as you think they do in terms of the power to sink shows with our withholding attention. We’re not the center of the universe, and quicker than ever are losing population majority status.
Considering the number of high-profile Netflix shows that largely had POC cast members and characters that have been canceled compared to some of the shows with largely white casts and characters that tend to stay around and stay around, I tend to assume that white people do have more of a sway with Netflix subscriptions and support. If you’re saying that most of Netflix’s subscriber base is not white and just never bothered with ODAAT for other reasons, you may be right, but we’ll never know either way.
That sounds like that’s more the fault of white executives than any supposed audience demographics.
As a European white viewer (so “majority” in this context), I just loved this show. It’s funny, heartfelt, deep and uplifting. I’m so sad to see it go just so we can (probably) get some more supernatural crap about “hot teens” played by terrible 20-something actors. I am dooooone, just give me Pen and Lydia and the kids and Schneider and the doc.
It means that not a lot of people found this show funny in the way that enough people find “Black-ish” on ABC funny.I didn’t find ODAAT funny at all. It always seemed hack-y to me. I don’t watch comedies for how they approach social issues. That’s a plus but it’s got to make me laugh or what’s the point?
Netflix also didn’t do a good job of promoting it, so there’s that. I always had Big Mouth, some random new original movie or a standup special pushed in my feed, but when S3 of ODAAT was released I had to go looking for it.Their “no one watches this show we didn’t market” complaint doesn’t hold much water with me.
I had no interest in the show, but that’s because it’s a sitcom.
If it was the best sitcom made in the last 5 other 10 years more people would have watched and it would not have been canceled.
After having dipped my toe into several fandoms over the years, I can say that most people in those fandoms prefer to talk about diversity in casting (or lack thereof), rather than support shows that have diversity. They’d write dissertations on how their favorite show/movie was too white, too male, and too straight, and how horrible it was; but when making a suggestion to check out something like Sense8, they made all sorts of excuses to not watch. I don’t know how that translates outside of fandoms and into the general viewing public, but I have a feeling it may be the same.
What the hell is Netflix doing? The way they’re just axxing their program left and right seems more out of panic, or buyers remorse following a spending spree.
ODAAT wasnt owned by them but rather sony. Thats the same reason they cancelled the marvel shows.I think this year they are starting to get a bit more stretched financially and are gonna go even more broad.
Oh, that’s a very good point! They’ve been pulling back on outside content and I don’t blame them.
I’m still waiting for the announcement of “Netflix buys ___ Network”.
Thats kinda like how even though Breaking Bad/Better call Saul was on AMC, it was really just own by Sony Pictures.
Binge offering for brand new content and multiple log ins is not a sustainable business model. The new episodes need to be doled out weekly if you want to keep the subscription money coming in. Eliminating concurrent log ins is needed if you want to keep your server and bandwidth costs down.
They are losing money hand over fist as they have been spending like crazy in order to get market share and it’s just not sustainable in the long term, so I’m guessing that they are becoming more ruthless these days.
What the hell does it take to not get canceled by Netflix? They can’t say “oh low viewership” and leave us to assume that millions and millions of people saw Ridiculous 6.
As others have suggested, “owned by another company” was probably the nail in the coffin.
The fun part is we’ll never know!
What the hell does it take to not get canceled by Netflix?
“Have you tried being Stranger Things?” – Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph, probably
The Ridiculous Six was a movie, not an ongoing TV series, so I don’t see the comparison.
c’mon guy, use your imagination.
Are you saying they want to… turn… Ridiculous Six… into a show? For the love of God?
“For the Love of God” would be a good working title.
How are they supposed to cancel a movie that’s already been made?
I’m so fucking pissed I could scream.
The entire Netflix model seems to be now “here’s a million dollars, oh it’s not a hit after the first weekend canceled”It took Seinfeld four seasons and being paired with the most popular show on television to find an audience.
Yeah, this is what really pisses me off. There’s constant pressure now to make fans binge a show very very fast, versus allowing them to find and enjoy them at their own pace because they know that if you finish too soon the production schedule means you’ll be waiting close to another year for more. This was the case for me and several streaming shows, including ODAAT. I don’t appreciate that Netflix now seems to treat many shows like they’re in an “opening weekend or fuck you” burnout marathon.
Three seasons is a bit of a chance, and it’s important to remember that the cultural zeitgeist isn’t just what’s reported on AV Club.
That being said, I don’t understand Netflix’s model, the list of ‘Netflix Originals’ that make it past the season 3 is staggeringly low, which, if your model is simply to replace content that had a steady following, should be easier than they make it look.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_distributed_by_Netflix
They gave it three seasons, if that’s not enough time for it to be successful how many more years should they subsidize it on the off-chance it catches on?
Yeah, 3 seasons is a lot. Wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near that in network TV probably. It’s not a fucking charity. We don’t know the viewing figures but wouldn’t be surprised if they were low. It wasn’t a buzzy show.
It probably is close to what they would have gotten on a number of networks.
It’s been buzzy for its whole run, especially the last two seasons.
Considering they never gave it a fraction of the promotion that any number of their other originals received, was it that no one “found” it or that it got buried under a mountain of other Netflix shows and they never chose to push it?It’s been critically adored from S1 so it’s not like there wasn’t any buzz to work with.
Considering they never gave it a fraction of the promotion that any number of their other originals received, was it that no one “found” it or that it got buried under a mountain of other Netflix shows and they never chose to push it?It’s been critically adored from S1 so it’s not like there wasn’t any buzz to work with.
The difference is, though, word of mouth is a lot easier to capitalize on now when you can watch most of these shows immediately. If you said to your friend, “You need to watch Seinfeld” in 1989, they would have to wait a week at the soonest and months at the longest (if it wasn’t running in the summer). Now you say, “You need to watch One Day at a Time” and you can go home that night and stream three of them. Services don’t need 3 or 4 years to build a fanbase.
That’s basically how every network treats new series, though. Letting shows “find their audience” is very much the exception rather than rule, and is usually a reflection of the need to fill a gap in the schedule with…something rather than a genuine investment in the series.
3 seasons and 39 episodes is a pretty good investment. I actually really like the show and it took me until the second season to start watching. I can see where Netflix is ready to pull the plug. It’s not as if the episodes won’t continue to be available and I’m sure they’d revive it if there was a sudden surge.
I mean, I’m with you since most of my favorite shows get canceled while garbage like House of Cards only dies because of the lead was discovered to be a serial sexual predator. That said… Netflix viewers don’t have normal reasons to justify missing shows. There’s no time slot issues here. It’s just mental laziness that drives viewers to less challenging content. Netflix can’t make viewers better. But they sure try. And let’s not forget they’ve let two goddamned masterpieces have a full creative run (OitNB and UKS).
OITNB = masterpiece? LOL WTF?
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
can it finally be time just to say “Fuck Netflix”?
A show with a laugh track wasn’t doing well? In 2019? This is shocking! (cue canned laughter)
It was taped live.
Despite that, Netflix has chosen to cancel their original series One Day At A Time, citing a lack of viewership as the cause.
It would be nice if we knew what “lack of viewership” amounted to precisely with Netflix, but they’re completely opaque on their numbers unless they’re trying to brag.
I suspect the other big reason is that they’ve moved aggressively into producing their own content, and ODAAT is owned by another company.
Meanwhile on the article about Spielberg hating on Netflix I mentioned that I wish they would release their data and half a dozen people jumped down my throat with “WHAT’S IT TO YOU????”
I’m a junky for classic multi-cam sitcoms. I know the artform is past its prime, but sometimes you need just a dumb comedy to turn the brain off and simply enjoy.That being said, I didn’t really expect to like this show, but it quickly became one of my favorites. The writing and the acting were outstanding. The classic mutlicam-style overacting by Rita Moreno and Stephen Tobolowski was always perfect.They touched on serious issues without the sad music and the makes-everything-better hug. I literally balled my eyes out when Penelope realized just how bad her depression was. I can’t say enough good things about this show.
This show is a treasure. Funny, heartwarming, handling serious issues with grace, fantastic cast. Decisions like this and the ever narrowing of their older and classic TV and movie offerings has really made me rethink my Netflix subscription.
They sucked all the positive press out of this that they could.The ratings were never great and, frankly, not a lot of people were talking about the show outside of the media and niches. A niche would be fine except Netflix is going for golden niches only. So they kept trash like that b.s. farmer show Danny Masterson was on because it his a sweet spot for them. Just enough of the right kind of viewers.
An excellent reminder that the brands are not your friends, no matter how much they tweet Michael Scott gifs or speak in the first person on social media.Netflix’s sad, performative wokeness about wanting minority stories to be told (just not on Netflix I guess) is super gross.
Yep. I fully understand that Netflix is not a nonprofit and their output actually needs to make money, so they are going to cancel quality programming with low viewership. But their gross tweets acting like they’re so committed to “telling these stories” are silly and disingenuous.
So should Netflix keep making new seasons of minority stories even if they’re losing the company money? They’re not a charity.
Netflix can make whatever business decisions Netflix wants to make. Netflix shouldn’t be allowed to get away with its two-faced PR, where they’re completely opaque about their decision making and the numbers behind it except when they think it serves them to not be. What does “we just couldn’t make it work” mean to Netflix? Are we to believe they’ve sternly stuck to a particular metric (they don’t share) where any show that loses X money over Y time has to go? We know what that means if NBC says it. Recently they’ve started bragging about very specifically structured statistics for particular shows. Nobody should take them seriously because we have no context for it.
Also, I don’t get how the show loses the company money. Their revenue is based on subscription money, not ad revenue. I doubt many people are signing up for Netflix to watch One Day at a Time…but the same could be said about many of their programs. Who knows, I haven’t looked at their finances.
That’s not at issue. The issue is cancelling the series while tossing out a disingenuous “aw, jeez, we’re really sorry, minority viewers, but what can you do? 🤷” tweet.
Yeah it basically put the blame for cancelation back on minority viewers with a “Sorry, you just didn’t watch it hard enough!”Netflix giving a seemingly popular show the axe is unsurprising, but their social media strategy of “@Netflix Handles, They’re Just Like Us!” looks disingenuous as f*ck now.
Netflix can make whatever it wants to. That’s not in question.What I’m calling out is their baldly disingenuous PR, trying to maintain their perceived status as an establishment outsider while making business moves that would be right at home on CBS. They reportedly spent $10 million on an Oscars campaign that amounted to You don’t get stories like Roma anywhere else! and threw $250 million at Adam Sandler to go on vacation. So this “We just couldn’t make ODAAT work, guys” excuse is underhanded considering they guard their metrics like state secrets. If Netflix is gonna pay $100 million so people can stream Friends for the 50th time, then admit that’s where your business is, but don’t give me this ‘gee whiz, this sure is a sad day for us too’ routine, because it’s shameless.
Meanwhile, if I want to watch Korean movies Netflix is the place to do it. There’s more cultural diversity on Netflix than there is on my cable box. 😛
I take it a further step and recognize that *all* entertainment is just “product” intended for mass consumption and *none* of it is micro-targeted specifically for my enjoyment. And in the context of daily living, none of it is “important”.
It’s a TV show. That on any other platform wouldn’t have received more than one season. It’s a bummer, but now it’ll never grow stale and bad like endless seasons of Shameless.
Bit of a bummer that we all sort of expected to happen.Still, the three seasons that exist are solid, and tackled a lot of issues in the sitcom format that few other shows have.
I’m more okay with this than I thought I’d be. It feels like a miracle that an old-fashioned sitcom even lasted this long, and at the end of the third season it really seemed like every character was at peace with themselves, and the show had done just about everything it set out to do. And this way the characters will always be the way they were when we grew to love them, without any risk of devolving into the dreck so many sitcoms turn into (plus no more risk of an actress in her late 80s suddenly dying before they’re ready, which was a big concern of mine the whole way through).
Now, if Netflix could only be sure to cancel that dastardly ‘Russian Doll’ program.
I have no idea how expensive the series was to be produced, but if they are willing to take a budget cut, I’m sure they could find a basic cable channel to pick them up somewhere.
Dafuq? I enjoyed this show. It was a blast to the 80s past. That style of sitcom. And it was written well. And had strong characters.
Poor Rita Moreno.
Fuck off, Netflix. You done fucked up.
odaat is sony=disney…Netflix is out of the Disney biz…if this show has any legs it will end up on Hulu
It lasted 3 seasons on Netflix, you honestly think it would have made it past 1 on any of the networks other than the CW (lately, even they’re a “maybe”)?