Eight months after its second season aired, Netflix broke news that Shadow and Bone is no more.
The popular fantasy series adapts author Leigh Bardugo’s books of the same name, along with aspects and characters from another series, Six of Crows. The show’s first two seasons were hugely popular among fans, earning a collective Tomatometer score of 84 percent and a passionate fanbase. Many of those same fans were also among the viewer bases for other discarded Netflix series like Warrior Nun and Lockwood & Co., and they’re sensing a trend in the trail of broken hearts the streamer has left in its wake.
Back in the day, Netflix was broadly seen as the savior our canceled favorites needed. It was often the only streamer to put its faith in canceled properties, and its charity saw a number of shows — including Arrested Development, Longmire, and You — maintain for several seasons after they were first canceled. That status as a haven for lost shows is a thing of the past, however, and increasingly Netflix is earning a reputation as the place where fantasy shows go to die.
Thankfully, Netflix was never the only streamer to put faith in the shows ditched by the competition. Other options like Hulu and Prime are also known to save canceled shows, which could provide hope for the masses of burned Shadow and Bone fans.
Could Shadow and Bone have a future on another streamer?
In 2022, Netflix made the terrible decision to cancel Warrior Nun. Fans of the highly-reviewed series were gobsmacked by the decision, particularly in the wake of a broadly-popular second season. They fought, and fought hard, for any kind of renewal of the show, and a good nine months after it was canceled, they won. Warrior Nun got the green light for a trilogy of films, rather than a fresh season, but its coming back. That’s what matters most.
The success of the Warrior Nun fanbase could inform the fight in store for Shadow and Bone fans. The show’s base kept up the rallying cry for months, marching, erecting billboards, and sharing near-constant hashtags to keep the movement alive. Without that kind of momentum, Shadow and Bone has little chance of succeeding, but a concentrated effort truly could see the show return.
Even if Shadow and Bone doesn’t return, a passionate fan campaign could at least see the Six of Crows spin-off get the go ahead. The book behind the story is among Bardugo’s best, and her fans have been waiting to see the thrilling heist make the transition to live-action for years. It’s easily among her most popular stories — and contains her most popular characters — so the story is all but assured to succeed. It could even be better, in its return, if it lands on a streamer that will stay true to the source material, instead of Netflixing it up.
The streamers most likely to pick up a Grishaverse continuation, based on history, are Hulu and Prime. Both streamers are, like Netflix, known for putting their faith in canceled properties, and that faith has seen shows like The Expanse and The Mindy Project return for sometimes seasons on end.
In a surprising turn of events, however, history shows that the same network or streamer to cancel a series is the most likely to eventually save it. A good quarter of canceled shows, historically, were saved by the same network that gave them the ax, according to TVLine.com, and we could see Shadow and Bone join that trend. It’s not likely — if Netflix didn’t save Warrior Nun after all the embarrassment the fanbase put it through, why would it save Shadow and Bone? — but its possible.
What’s more likely, however, is that the fanbase convinces either an alternate streamer or moviemaker to put their faith in Leigh Bardugo’s world. With enough concentrated effort from the fanbase, history has shown this to be entirely do-able, so long as our passion for a revival doesn’t ebb with time.
