Aaron Paul may be having a good working stretch thanks to gigs in the upcoming Truth Be Told series, a job in Westworld, and a return to playing Jesse Pinkman in El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. However, although a lot is coming up Aaron Paul these days, the actor is not immune to bad news and recently got some when Netflix announced BoJack Horseman was ending. Now, he’s speaking out about what happened.
Although BoJack Horseman’s last season had been spun as a decision from the show's creator, in a couple of posts, Aaron Paul shared his emotions over BoJack wrapping, also intimating that perhaps the show’s end wasn’t the rainbows and butterflies ending that had been reported last week. First, he shared his feelings about the ending of the show, also giving fans a look at the Season 6 trailer.
Aaron Paul later went on to expound on his feelings more in depth, which is where he noted that he and the creative team had a great time putting together the animated series, which had been one of the streamer’s signature shows through its earliest run of original programming, before seemingly pointing out they would have kept going had they been allowed.
We had a wonderful time making Bojack. Couldn’t be more proud. Fell in love with these characters just like everyone else did but sadly Netflix thought it was time to close the curtains and so here we are. They gave us a home for 6 beautiful years. Nothing we could do about it.
BoJack Horseman made it through Netflix’s early rounds of cancellations and then kept rolling as newer shows started to be axed. Ultimately however, last week Netflix came out to explain that BoJack Horseman will be ending its run sooner rather than later, which was initially a little surprising given that Season 5 of the series had been one of the most highly-rated of the show so far.
The silver lining was that BoJack Horseman had already previously been announced for Season 6 before Netflix opted to call it quits. So fans would get one more season to wrap up the story.
It all seems pretty straightforward, but what’s most interesting about Aaron Paul’s reaction is that it doesn’t totally tie in with earlier reports about the show ending. When the news initially broke, THR and other outlets reported that Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the show’s creator, had already planned Season 6 as a conclusion to the story.
The explanation made sense. After all, Raphael Bob-Waksberg already has a new show heading to Amazon that is also animated. It’s called Undone and the first look at the new series, which features Alita: Battle Angel’s Rosa Salazar doing voice work, shows a young girl who is able to manipulate time after a car crash.
BoJack Horseman’s ending was reported as a “creative” decision, and that sort of ending for a series in general is usually more palatable for the fanbase. Now with his “nothing we could do about it” comment, Aaron Paul seems to be indicating the show was cancelled by Netflix and that’s why Season 6 is being planned as the conclusion and not the other way around.
Early in its original programming run, Netflix was sort of seen as the savior of cancelled shows, adding projects that originally aired on regular TV like Longmire and Lucifer. In more recent months, it has either ended or cancelled a slew of shows.
We’re talking about stuff across all kinds of genres. There’s Tuca and Bertie, an animated series that got axed. There’s One Day At A Time, a live-action comedy that was cancelled but also later got saved by regular television network Pop. There’s The OA, which sparked a lot of fan anger online, given it ended on a cliffhanger.
Then, of course there are the myriad shows Netflix has designated as “ending,” such as The Ranch, GLOW, and Fuller House.
Ultimately, Netflix is still figuring out its business model in terms of price points, but also just the amount of content it is able to keep up with and get its users to watch. Network and cable TV has had to figure out and face cancellations for years, but watching a whole new medium trying different ways to handle the fanbase has been interesting to say the least.
Luckily for everyone, the new trend has been for TV shows to be given one more season to wrap things up. That’s what’s happening with BoJack Horseman, here, and then Aaron Paul can move on to pushing his other upcoming TV projects. This ending might be bittersweet, but he’s going to be just fine.
