Sense8 fans were incensed when Netflix announced it was going to cut the sci-fi series short after two seasons, but per co-creator Lana Wachowski, they’ll get one last chance to say goodbye to the Cluster after all.
Netflix’s Sense8, canceled after 2 seasons, will air a 2-hour finale special in 2018
Co-creator Lana Wachowski tells fans, “your love has brought Sense8 back to life.”
Caroline Framke wrote about culture, which usually means television. Also seen @ The A.V. Club, The Atlantic, Complex, Flavorwire, NPR, the fridge to get more seltzer.
In a statement posted to Twitter, Wachowski addressed the cancellation, which was both a surprise, given Netflix’s traditional reluctance to cancel shows, and not so much, given Sense8’s reportedly astronomical globetrotting budget. She shared her feelings on the cancellation, saying it “hollowed me out,” and expressed gratitude for the fact that she’ll get to address the season two cliffhanger and resolve the show for real.
“It is my great pleasure as well as Netflix’s (believe me, they love the show as much as we do, but the numbers have always been challenging) to announce that there will be another two hour special released next year,” Wachowski wrote. “After that ... if this experience has taught me anything, you NEVER know.”
Wachowski’s passionate statement suggests that the fan uproar was perhaps the deciding factor in getting the show back off the ground for one last ride. She thanked the fans for making their outrage so loudly known via hashtags (#BringBackSense8) and petitions for Netflix to renew the show, one of which garnered more than half a million signatures.
“The passionate letters, the petitions, the collective voice that rose up like the fist of Sun to fight for this show was beyond what anyone was expecting,” said Wachowski. “... improbably, unforeseeably, your love has brought Sense8 back to life.”
This is a startling assertion, especially given the fact that just a few weeks ago, Netflix released its own statement in response to the pushback: “We’ve seen the petitions. We’ve read the messages ... we wish we could #BringBackSense8 for you ... [but] we’ve thought long and hard here at Netflix to try to make it work but unfortunately we can’t.”
So while it’s probably true that Netflix was taken aback by the level of enthusiasm fans expressed for the show given its lackluster numbers (another thing we have to take on faith, seeing as Netflix has never revealed its viewership stats), a petition probably wasn’t the crux of the streaming platform’s decision to bring Sense8 back to life; as Wachowski acknowledges in her letter, fan love is still often viewed as “less important than the bottom line.”
But in this instance — thanks to some combination of timing, the Wachowskis’ considerable pull, and the fact that a two-hour special is much more feasible than an entire new season — the chips seem to have fallen in Sense8’s favor.
