Why did Netflix cancel ‘First Kill’ but not ‘Heartstopper?’

Fans of First Kill were outraged this week when Netflix announced that it was canceling the supernatural teen drama after just one season, despite having made its way into the top ten shows on the platform when it was released back in June.

The series focused on two teenage girls, Juliette (Sarah Catherine Hook), the descendant of a powerful family of vampires; and monster hunter Calliope (Imani Lewis), who fall in love with each other against the orders of their respective warring clans. Both families demand that each teen make the other their “first kill,” thereby cementing their place in the family lineage.

And while it may or may not be fair to compare apples and oranges, the discourse online has been quick to compare First Kill to another LGBTQIA+ romance series focused on young adults — the critically-acclaimed Heartstopper, which was recently picked up for two additional seasons. Compounding the frustration is that First Kill amassed nearly double of the viewing hours as Heartstopper when each series was positioned in the top 10; with 97.6 million hours compared to the latter season’s 53.4 million.

So you can hardly blame fans who sounded off on Twitter by comparing the treatment of the two shows, following the news of the cancellation.

Other fans were quick to point out problematic issues with the cancellation, such as Netflix favoring gay content over lesbian content, or that First Kill featured a dark-skinned Black lead actress.

These are all undoubtedly valid concerns, and perhaps ones that Netflix should have examined more closely before making the decision to pull the plug. It’s a bad look — there’s no two ways about it — especially when you consider that the streamer seems to have a habit of prematurely canceling young adult series. (Look no further than Everything Sucks, I Am Not Okay With This, and Teenage Bounty Hunters, which were likewise all axed after one season.)

However, it would also be disingenuous to suggest that there weren’t other factors at play that may have weighed into Netflix’s decision when looking at the bigger picture. So what gives?

Critical reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, Heartstopper has a near-perfect 100 percent critical score with a very tight 97 perfect audience score. First Kill, on the other hand, boasts a middling 58 percent critical score with a more optimistic 89 percent audience score. Critics generally found the show to be pretty cheesy, with the consensus being that the “clumsy execution leaves an aftertaste that’s more garlicky than sweet.”

It’s also worth pointing out that Heartstopper was a bona fide pop culture phenomenon, whereas First Kill had more of a niche audience. In the weeks after Heartstopper premiered, you could barely throw a stone without hitting someone who was gushing about the series. And while Netflix keeps its metrics close to the chest, this slow burn effect could have likewise had an effect on its viewing numbers — to suggest that those viewing hours within the top ten may not have been wholly indicative of its overall performance.

Netflix is bleeding money and subscribers

This is a big one. Netflix, shall we say, is not doing great right now. The streaming service lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022 and nearly one million in the second quarter. (Though, the second quarter still fell short of the projected two million.) Not to mention, competition from rival streamers is not helping, many of which provide affordable tiers of ad-supported content or feature next-day network and cable content, such as Hulu.

Factor in that the service has dumped an ungodly amount of money into the final two seasons of Stranger Things and big budget projects such as The Gray Man and Red Notice, and … Well, you can start to see the cracks forming. Again, it doesn’t make it OK to neglect niche, LGBTQIA+ teen content, but the writing is unfortunately on the wall. When even the fate of Netflix’s massively popular The Umbrella Academy is hanging in the balance, it’s clear that there are bigger issues at play.

Not to mention, as a supernatural drama, First Kill is likely much more of an expensive series. Comparatively, Heartstopper is filmed in a small coastal town in southeast England and features more inexpensive filming locations such as classrooms, bedrooms, and bowling alleys.

Another component not to be overlooked is that Heartstopper is based on a series of graphic novels which have a pretty clear map laid out for additional seasons, whereas First Kill is based on a short story. The exhaustion of source material is a common problem that tends to plague series based on a book or story [stares in Game of Thrones] so it’s impossible to say whether or not Netflix execs may have seen where the story was heading and acted accordingly.

None of this is likely to provide solace to fans who are upset about a beloved series being canceled too soon, nor does it excuse any of those very legitimate complaints and concerns. But with dead, one-season series piling up left and right on Netflix, with any hope the streamer will be a bit more discerning of and committed to its original storytelling in the future.