Another day, another Netflix cancellation. In what is starting to become a trend for a lot of one-season shows that land on the streamer, Netflix has ultimately opted to cancel Dash & Lily after only one season on the air. The weird thing about this one? The subscription streaming service waited almost an entire year to make the decision.
Dash & Lily was a fun holiday one for the streaming service. A rom-com TV series that was based on a young adult novel, the show actually followed a couple of young folks corresponding via a notebook, trading dares and more. The show actually had landed a coveted 100% ranking with the critics on Rotten Tomatoes (though it is worth noting the audience score was a little lower for the series). It also won Daytime Emmy Awards. Regardless, it looks like the viewership attention the series earned wasn’t enough for the service to sign on for Season 2.
If you watched Dash & Lily when it first came out, that would have been way back in November of 2020. The show had a bit of a holiday theme, so the timing was good, but it’s interesting that we’re only now hearing about the show’s cancellation in October of 2021, just short of an entire year later. TV Line reported the news, though there was no clarification about why Netflix ultimately decided to cancel the show.
Sometimes, no news from Netflix is good news. The subscription streamer sometimes likes to surprise people with release information just a short while before new originals come out. Combine that with the fact that Dash & Lily had more source material to draw from (there are three books) and that series lead Austin Abrams had confirmed he’d signed contracts to potentially make more and I would have guessed Season 2 was in the pipeline. He actually noted to Popsugar last winter:
Yeah, I've already signed a couple of contracts, so I'm on board. I'm not really sure what the plan is exactly, and I'm not sure what I would want to see. I can only assume they'd want it to be in the spirit of the second book.
This isn’t the first time shows with passionate fanbases have been cancelled by Netflix after one season. Some other notable shows that were axed include The Irregulars, a show about teens working for Dr. John Watson of Sherlock Holmes lore and Jupiter’s Legacy, a superhero series starring Josh Duhamel. Shortly after those two cancellations, the streamer also cancelled Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!, a comedy that had picked up traction due to starring Jamie Foxx.
Fans are often still surprised each time Netflix cancels a show. It’s worth noting, however, that Netflix’s plan for its original series’ vary wildly from the traditional TV model. Traditional networks and cablers often order a pilot and if that pilot goes well, the network will order a first season of a series. Netflix skips the pilot process entirely and will just sign on for an entire season of a show. This is great, because at least Dash & Lily fans were able to get eight full episodes in Season 1. Unfortunately, it also means a lot of Netflix’s content only ever gets one season.
