Chilling Adventures of Sabrina fans were shocked last month when Netflix unexpectedly announced that the show would come to an end after its upcoming fourth season. This came as a surprise to me, too, as I’d assumed that the very entertaining Satanic comedy had been a big hit for the streaming site. Soon after that bombshell, fans became even more upset when creator and showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa revealed that Part 5 would have featured a crossover with The CW’s Riverdale.
In a situation like this, fans’ options are limited, but a petition was launched shortly after the announcement and it’s been snowballing in popularity. It rocketed to 70K signatures soon after launch and has been gathering names ever since. Right now, they’re at about 190K and it seems that busting through the 200K mark is inevitable.
The petition explains:
“Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is an extremely popular show on the streaming service, “Netflix” on July 8th, 2020 it was announced that the show would be ending after it’s 4th season. We are petitioning to bring this back after it’s unfair cancellation and ask that it be renewed for a 5th season. The show is extremely loved by fans and we hope this petition can bring the show back from the dead.”
So, could this work? Sadly, my prediction is that it won’t. People have examined when Netflix tends to cancel shows and noticed that it’s relatively rare for their original series to make it past a third season. This could be because their goal is to get new subscribers rather than maintain existing ones and fresh shows are more likely to do that than older ones.
Still, it’s not all doom and gloom for Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and its fans. This petition proves that there’s a dedicated fanbase out there for it and we’ve heard rumors that there’s a slim chance it could be picked up by HBO Max. Given that Sabrina is a Warner Bros. property, this is the logical place for the show to go and we know that the new streaming network is responsive to fan campaigns as they greenlit Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
So, if you’re dusting off your crystal ball to see the future of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, there may yet be some light at the end of the tunnel.