The Secret Reasons Netflix Cancels Shows Like ‘First Kill’

First Kill fans remain confused about why their show was killed despite solid placement in Netflix’s top 10 and a hundred million viewing hours, better than a lot of other shows that do get renewed. But in this age of streaming and binge watching and “retention,” it turns out there are far more metrics to consider. And those are the ones that may have killed First Kill, in particular.

A new Deadline report says that even though the overall viewing hours for First Kill were solid, the show struggled with other internal metrics that Netflix places a high value on, ones that are rarely ever made public. In this case, First Kill did not hit the Netflix-given thresholds for viewing and completion of episodes. As in, a lot of people dropped off from the series as it went, implying that perhaps there would not be much of an audience for season 2, even if initial interest was high.

Showrunner Felicia D. Henderson said that Netflix told her that the completion rate specifically was not high enough, the main reason for the cancellation:

“When I got the call to tell me they weren’t renewing the show because the completion rate wasn’t high enough, of course, I was very disappointed,” said Henderson. “What showrunner wouldn’t be? I’d been told a couple of weeks ago that they were hoping completion would get higher. I guess it didn’t.”

I am very much reminded of the above scene in the last season of Barry, where Barry’s girlfriend Sally lands her dream project, a show that debuts to high critic scores and is featured on the front page of a streaming service. But by the time she can finish a conversation with an executive, it’s already been cancelled because the “algorithm” deemed not enough people were watching.

While it doesn’t work exactly like that, we are living in a very specific age of metrics. There may be some leeway for human considering if a show is reviewing crazy well or has an especially potent fanbase, but for shows on the bubble like First Kill, it does come down to specific tracking metrics like not enough people finishing the series, audience scores be damned.

The showrunner, in additional comments, also blames Netflix marketing for focusing too much on the lesbian vampire/hunter dynamic and not enough on other elements of the show, but I’m not convinced that would have been the deciding factor here. One thing working against First Kill was also that it wasn’t…very good in general. I mean, that’s a matter of opinion, of course, but many critics seemed to feel that way. That said, low critic scores have never stopped Netflix from renewing things before, especially with higher audience numbers, but here, it’s that hidden metric, series completion, that did First Kill in. Hollywood’s a ruthless business, always has been, always will be.

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