Will Netflix's Santa Clarita Diet Be Renewed or Cancelled?

UPDATE: This show has been cancelled by Netflix. See below for how the fans can save it.

The Netflix zombie comedy Santa Clarita Diet arrived on the streaming service in 2017 and has been well-received so far while also building up an notable following. That streamer does not usually share its viewership numbers, but critics have given it good marks and it currently holds a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes for its third season. But rumors have surfaced recently that this show may not stick around for a fourth season, and fans have to be wondering what the chances are that it will be the next to fall to Netflix’s recent cancellation fever.

Over the last few years, Netflix has been pouring a lot of money into original programming and has been releasing new shows at an amazing rate. But more recently, the service has also been cancelling its shows at a higher rate than was previously seen which is starting to make some of its subscribers nervous. As a streaming service that does not rely on revenue from advertising, Netflix ties the success of a show to the number of new subscribers it brings onboard. It has an internal formula that it uses to gauge whether shows are bolstering new subscriptions, and that helps determine how long Neflix wants to continue producing new seasons. Unfortunately, diminishing returns set in pretty quickly, and the streamer seems to have pegged the third season as the tipping point at which the new subscription rate no longer justifies producing more seasons (plus or minus a season depending on the show). So Netflix execs have determined that is the point to cut loose on an existing property and focus instead on new shows to create a constant churn that is bringing onboard more subscriptions.

Whether that is a good approach or not is debatable, and I will be looking at that in more detail in an upcoming post. More to the point is how this churn-and-burn policy impacts Santa Clarita Diet. Series star Timothy Olyphant made the comment to TVLine that “every time I turn around they’re cancelling a show over there”. He also said that if the show ends with its third season he would feel “lucky” to have worked on it and believes that they did a good job with the series. This show is at that third season cusp, and if past trends hold up it could join other Netflix three-or-less-seasons-and-out shows like Hemlock Grove, Sense8, Daredevil, and non-genre entry One Day at a Time. It’s also possible that Santa Clarita Diet could get one more season, but Netflix announces that as its last. In any case, it seems like this one could be on the way out sooner rather than later (and it won’t be moving to a different platform because of the way the streamer does its licensing deals).

This should act as a Call to Action to fans if they want the show to continue for another season or more. But their strategy will have to be different than the fan support campaigns for a series on the broadcast nets or cable networks. Drawing attention to the show on the social networks and getting more people to watch it will not necessarily give it a boost in the eyes of the Netflix execs. Sure, it would look good if the viewing numbers increased, but that has little impact on the bottom dollar if it is not drawing in enough new subscriptions. So fans need to take the social nets and convince people to sign up with Netflix to watch the show. If the streamer sees a clear correlation between new subscriptions and viewership increases for Santa Clarita Diet, it will have an incentive to keep the show going. The social media attention would definitely be good as well, but new subscriptions are key to the show’s continued survival.

The streaming services are definitely changing the way that we consume television as people increasingly turn to those platforms for binge-watching. But they are also changing the make up of ongoing television with shorter seasons and potentially shorter overall runs. Perhaps that’s a good thing, at least for some shows. But fans get attached to their shows and want them to stick around for more than just a handful of years, and we have seen where their efforts can stave off cancellation. The strategy to save streaming shows will be a little different, but the social networks are still a key tool that fans can use to draw attention to their shows and perhaps avert a date with the Network Executioner.

Be sure to join the ranks of the #CancelledSciFiArmy on Twitter as we help fans fight to save their struggling and cancelled sci fi shows.