Netflix pissed off the queers again—and its Twitter page has turned into a sh*tshow
unfortunate cost-cutting measures and the fact the they continue to give a platform to hateful rhetoric disguised as “comedy,” they’ve also offered up plenty of original programming centered on LGBTQ stories and characters.To name a few: Heartstopper became one of Netflix’s most buzzed about hits, Stranger Things is finally exploring one character’s coming out, Uncoupled has a middle-aged gay man front and center, and First Kill put a sapphic spin on Romeo & Juliet with its Buffy-esque First Kill.Alas, it was just this week that Netflix put a stake through the heart of First Kill fans, canceling the lesbian vampire teen romance after only one season.
While showrunner Felicia D. Henderson says execs told her the seres’ “completion rate” wasn’t high enough to garner a renewal, its axing points to a larger, disconcerting trend.“Why does Netflix keep canceling WLW shows?,” our colleagues at INTO asked, astutely observing that, more often than not, series centered on WLW come to an untimely end.
Despite garnering positive reviews and an impressive fanbase, Netflix determined there wasn’t enough of an appetite for First Kill to live beyond its initial eight episodes.But First Kill is just the latest of many to be gone too soon.
As INTO references, there’s I Am Not Okay With This, Everything Sucks!, One Day At A Time, Sense8—we could go on. And as these series get buried, fans are beginning to note that this seems to be happening disproportionately to WLW-centric film and television.Related: Start Halloween season early with an overlooked gay romance in a terrifying classicIf First Kill’s demise was due to some algorithm that determined it wasn’t cost-effective programming, then how are other, less successful series able to.
