This article contains spoilers for the first-season finale of Netflix’s “Archive 81,” released on Jan. 14.
A Netflix publicist confirmed a Deadline.com report that the streaming service canceled filmed-in-Pittsburgh supernatural thriller “Archive 81” after just one season.
No reason for the cancellation was given by Netflix which often considers the completion rate of its shows – how many subscribers start and watch all the episodes of a season – as well as the amount of viewing of a series relative to its cost. “Archive 81” was a special effects-heavy show, adding to its per-episode cost.
The well-reviewed “Archive 81” – 73 out of 100 at Metacritic – had little promotional fanfare and featured no marquee stars but jumped to No. 1 on Netflix’s Top 10 in the U.S. list within four days of its January premiere and stayed in that spot for almost a week before it was dethroned by a new season of established Netflix drama “Ozark.”
In a December interview, series creator Rebecca Sonnenshine said she has a plan for future seasons of the series and did not envision it as one-and-done, particularly given the show’s cliffhanger first-season finale that found archivist Dan Turner trapped in 1994 after documentary filmmaker Melody Hobson (Dina Shihabi) escaped being trapped in an interdimensional portal since 1994 and arrived in the present day.
“I think Melody is just completely confused and has no idea where she is,” Shihabi said. “She’s been stuck in a place for 25 years and it’s like purgatory. She knows who Dan is because she’s been having these connections with him. And so to arrive in a place without seeing Dan, to now see two new people that she has no idea who they are, I just think she’s totally overwhelmed and doesn’t know what happened. I think it’s beautiful that the person she ends up with is her mother, but she doesn’t know that yet.”
Shihabi said Sonnenshine offered no indication of where the story might go in a second season but Shihabi had her preferences.
“I do love the idea of a mother-daughter badass journey with the two of them going after and trying to find Dan, making sure Kaelego doesn’t get out and stop Samuel,” Shihabi said. “I love that it would be a mother-daughter doing that together. I think that’s amazing.”
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