‘Shadow And Bone’ Season 3 And ‘Six Of Crows’ Spin-Off Depends On Season 2

At least so far, Shadow and Bone season 2 is performing quite well on Netflix, unseating the second half of You season 4 for the top spot on the service, and staying there since its debut last Thursday. Its reign has lasted all weekend, and it seems to be doing great.

Well, normal great, or Netflix great? Those are two very different questions.

And it appears to be not just the fate of Shadow and Bones season 3 that depends on season 2’s performance, but also a potential Six of Crows spin-off series as well, meaning more is riding on season 2 than usual. Given that this is a fairly expensive fantasy production, Shadow and Bone probably has a higher bar than most.

“One of the reasons, not all of them, that I got the privilege of working with Daegan Fryklind as co-showrunner in season 2 is that I was busy with the writers’ room for Six of Crows. We are ready to launch that as its own story,” showrunner Eric Heisserer told EW. “The eight-episode scripts are phenomenal and I’m really proud of my team for those.”

However, the same report discussing the spin-off says it’s still early and is “not close to getting a greenlight,” albeit this was written before Shadow and Bone’s very solid top 10 placement. The spin-off series is supposed to take place at least in part during the events of the season 2 finale, adapting the duology from Leigh Bardugo.

The things working in Shadow and Bone’s favor are solid debut numbers (at least in top 10 terms) and a second season that’s reviewing well among both critics and fans. It feels like a solid fantasy universe Netflix can continue to grow and expand.

Working against it? A relatively high cost compared to other Netflix productions, given the nature of the fantasy story and the visual effects required. I also have to wonder if Netflix may be skeptical of fantasy spin-offs after how badly The Witcher: Blood Origin did, even if that’s an entirely different team and series. Still, it was bad enough to leave a mark.

But what Netflix certainly needs right now is more complete series. Shadow and Bone is three books and Six of Crows is a duology that might only need to be one season. Netflix has a massive graveyard of shows that were cancelled after a season or two, ending on unfinished cliffhangers. There is real value in letting a story be complete and have an actual ending, especially when it’s adapting something that does in fact have a proper ending already written. You need these kinds of things in your back catalog. Measuring everything on current viewership versus outgoing budget spend is not a way to create a healthy service in the long term. We’ll see what happens here.

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