Putting the shoe on the other foot, the star of a canceled TV show saved by Netflix has no idea how renewals work

Any time a high-profile Netflix series gets canceled, you can bet your house on social media campaigns and petitions being launched in the immediate aftermath, almost all of which amount to nothing. Ironically, while none of the company’s originals have been resurrected elsewhere, the streamer does have a habit on feeding on other folks’ scraps.

One of the most notable was Designated Survivor, which ran on ABC for two seasons of espionage and political intrigue before being canned. Stepping into the breach, Netflix struck a deal to save the show for a third and final run of episodes that couldn’t be found anywhere else other than the in-house content library.

Despite having since left Designated Survivor behind in favor of another spy-driven thriller that airs on streaming and streaming only, Rabbit Hole‘s Kiefer Sutherland still has no idea what constitutes the criteria for renewal, something he admitted caused him plenty of frustration in an interview with TV Insider.

“With the networks, there was a relationship somehow that would get developed pretty quickly and you would know. You would get a sense it would be leaning one way or another, and you would pretty much know as you were finishing up your season what was going to happen.

With the streaming services — with Paramount Plus and my experience with Netflix, and I have to believe with all of them because I’ve heard this from other actors and writers as well — there’s kind of a wall between the group that makes whatever the programming is and the people that actually program it, and I don’t know why, but Nielsen’s not publishing the ratings for these shows particularly. And so there’s a lot of counting and figuring that’s going on that really you’re not involved with at all. It’s just changed. So it is very odd to not have a sense of where they stand with it.”

If the on-camera talent has no clue how these things work, then us mere peasants are going to be even more stumped. Let’s not forget Sutherland is a full-fledged TV legend having anchored a decade of 24, so we’re doomed when it comes to finding out the inner workings.