Manifest rose from the network TV graveyard for a second life on Netflix with a season four. Series creator Jeff Rake and lead actor Josh Dallas share how they reacted to the rebirth.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Rake talked about how Melissa Roxburgh, who plays Detective Michaela Stone in the supernatural series, sent him a text message in May 2021 and delivered the good news.
“She said, ‘What is this?’ I had no idea. No one had ever mentioned a thing to me about Manifest premiering on Netflix. The rest of my executive producers had no idea, studio executives I worked with had no idea, nobody in my orbit knew.”
The series follows the events of people who disappeared for five-and-a-half years during a commercial airline flight. As they try to uncover what really happened, strange occurrences start happening. The people who returned begin experiencing “Callings,” voices pointing them in directions all for some greater unknown plan. Some lose their sense of reality, others build a cult around it, and society starts to turn on them. It makes having a personal life that much more difficult.
The show was canceled after three seasons at NBC, but the fervent fanbase wouldn’t let it go down without a fight. Online petitions started as they tried to get the word out about the show, and even Stephen King threw his support behind Manifest. To their collective relief, Netflix agreed to give the show one more season on the streaming service to finish out the story.
Dallas shared his initial reaction and showed great appreciation for the fanbase that didn’t give up on it.
“We had the devastation and the shock of being canceled, and then this groundswell of people finding the show for the first time in many cases on Netflix. Extraordinary and just nothing but gratitude. The reason we make these shows are for the people, for the fans. The fact that they took this story and these characters and brought them all into their hearts and wanted to see so much more of the story and mobilize themselves into this group to bring it back was humbling and gratifying and really moving.”
The series started strong in the ratings and then continued to decrease with each passing season. Rake, who’s had other shows canceled, including The CW’s Beauty and the Beast and The Tomorrow People, saw the writing on the wall when things got quiet when they were finishing up production on season three.
When Manifest came to Netflix, it performed very well. It managed to make the Top 10 list of the most popular programming on the service and it gave him a bit of hope that the show wasn’t fully dead. It still took some time for the official green light from Netflix, and during the interim, he worked to keep the cast, writers, crew, and everybody feeling hopeful about it.
Manifest Season four is set two years after the shocking events of the last season. Ben is in a bad way as he searches for a missing person who’s very close to him. The final season comes to Netflix on November 4.
