This week the news broke that Kaos, the Greek god-themed fantasy starring Jeff Goldblum  – which debuted just 5 weeks ago – has been cancelled by Netflix. It joins a pile which is growing faster than my floordrobe, of fantasy shows which have been cancelled after 1 season.

While “high fantasy” (those which take place in an imagined world) shows still seem to be fighting through the audience mire – Rings of Power is growing in acclaim, House of Dragon seems to have found its feet – but “low fantasy” (set in a version of our world) seems to be in the targets of every streamer’s hit list.

Lockwood and Co, The Bastard Son of the Devil Himself, Dead Boy Detectives, Renegade Nell, Time Bandits and Lady Jane are among the fantasy titles that have ended before they barely got started, in the past year. No streamer is the single standout culprit, though Netflix is certainly is a repeat offender in killing off shows in their infancy. And Disney takes the crown for not just cancelling but wiping Willow (the series) from existence altogether.There’s no doubt it’s rough seas for any new TV show in the current financial climate, but why are fantasy shows being dealt the rough end of the stick over other genres?

Time Bandits was axed by Apple TV+ recently which is surprising given the the talent in front of and behind the camera.

The reasons are, of course, multi-fold. The most obvious one is money. It’s what every TV decision comes down to, and simply put, fantasy is more costly to produce than straight drama. Several of the shows listed above not only include magic and supernatural aspects but they also feature period elements.

Creating visual SFX for magic, ghosts and other supernatural beings is costly enough, but to then add into that the costly business of ensuring an accurate representation of 1900s England or 900s Mesoamerica means a huge investment in both material and time.  It’s far more laborious to bring us the world of Dead Boy Detectives than it is the current world of Heartstopper or Sex Education. 

Dead Boy Detectives axed by Netflix who haven’t had a great track record with the genre.

I use those shows as comparisons as one of the elements that most of these fantasy shows have in common is that they are aimed at the young adult or family market – markets that TV seems to really be struggling with. While shows like Succession and Shōgun sweep awards, they are squarely adult ground, aiming for the mature audience and appealing to the demographic who make TV, write the reviews and cast the votes in the award season. 16 year olds aren’t the ones who make the decisions, or the money, so making TV for them is a hard ground to navigate.

Yet several of those shows have found their target audience, as the fanbase for Dead Boy Detectives and Lady Jane that populates Tumblr and Twitter(X) can attest. These fanbases are devoted, passionate and determined, and are mounting campaigns to show potential new streamers that the show has a built in fan-base who are vested in the outcome of the stories. 

 The problem is despite the money these fans are investing, it can’t match the buying power of the adult general audience who are watching more generic dramas, and nor can it match the buying power of the adult “nerd” audience who buy into shows with heavy lore like The Rings of Power (who have the Tolkien-loving-mafia behind them). However, we know young adult material can make money as easy as breathing – one just has to look at the success of the Harry Potter books and movies to see that it exists. Why are these shows not reaching those highs?

Much of that answer is down to the rapidly changing way that young people consume media. Since the height of the Harry Potter-mania, generational life has become ever more fractionated, with “family viewing” being an increasing scarcity as children and adults alike turn to watching TV on devices, instead of television sets. With streaming and devices becoming better and better at emulating TV screens, the concept of scheduling family watching is rarer than ever.

Even Sally Wainwright’s ‘Renegade Nell’ couldn’t get a second season.

That said, there certainly is a feeling that if some of these shows were on mainstream TV they might have stood a better chance of finding its audience. If Renegade Nell – Sally Wainwright’s magical, girl-power highway-woman comedy drama – had aired in the Doctor Who slot on BBC1, it could absolutely have captured more of the young girls who are the ideal audience. Families do still expect mainstream channels to present shows aimed at them when they sit down to a pizza or fish fingers and beans on a Saturday tea time. But sadly the BBC isn’t investing in these kinds of shows the way they did in the 1980s, when they brought such classics as The Chronicles of Narnia and The Box of Delights to life. For people in Generation X, those shows are part of the run-up to Christmas and cosy family time in the darker month. Gen Alpha won’t get that.

It feels as though many of these fantasy shows could find their audience – despite the generation divide – with different scheduling, different advertising, and a channel that is willing to give the show a chance to find its audience. And that’s the self-fulfilling problem we are creating here. By cancelling so many shows so quickly, audiences are no longer willing to get emotionally involved in a story that isn’t likely to get an ending. And so the initial viewing figures aren’t what the company hoped for, and the show is cancelled as the audience feared it would  be.

 There has to be a willingness to let an audience find a show – Koas being cancelled after just 5 weeks, when many viewers are still “getting around” to watching it thanks to the sheer amount of new TV there is to watch every week, shows companies fail to understand how normal people watch TV. Word of mouth is no longer enough, and shows have to be “must watch” the second they land, or they are deemed a failure.

This kind of thinking leads to greater reliance on established IPs (like the Star Wars or Marvel universes), reboots, and the impact of big name stars. Companies need to throw everything at a show to give it the best chance of catching a viewer’s attention before it’s even aired a single minute of product. It stifles originality, and leads to a greater reliance on advertising than quality. 

 And even more dangerous than not allowing a show to find its audience, is not allowing a show to grow. The most cited example is, of course, Parks and Recreation which bore very little resemblance to its finished shape when it debuted. It took 2 seasons to find its comedy feet and many shows had similar unsteady starts, but went on to brilliance (Do you remember that The Golden Girls had a gay chef in their first season? Or Ritchie Cunningham had a big brother in season 1 of Happy Days?). What greatness are we missing out on because they are all being cut off before they learn to walk?

 Thankfully, the BBC seem to be learning from this by giving many of their new comedies a second season (Things I Should Have Done, Daddy Issues etc). ITV, sadly, didn’t do the same with their raft of new comedies, and Netflix and co seem to only extend the arm so far for non-fantasy shows. They simply don’t seem to be willing to take the chance on a genre which is, ironically, known for finding its audience after its time (so many fantasy movies were panned in their day but have gone on to be deemed as classics).

 Of course, it would be remiss to point out that maybe the issue with all of these shows really comes down to writing – and in honesty, few of them are staggering in writing quality. However, that simply links back to the question of growth, and when creators like Taika Waititi and, arguably Britain’s greatest living TV writer Sally Wainwright, can’t make it work, who can?