Stop us if you’ve heard this one before. A promising new Netflix show, boasting a stacked cast and an exciting creative team, that just started coming into its own at the tail-end of its first season… has been cancelled. It happened to KAOS. It happened to The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself. It happened to Lockwood & Co.. It happened to The Midnight Club. And now, as Deadline reports, it has just happened to The Boroughs, the streamer’s lavish, Duffer Brothers produced sci-fi mystery series.
Marketed as a sort-of geriatric Stranger Things — or The Thursday Murder Club with more sci-fi shenanigans — The Boroughs flipped the script on the Duffer Brothers’ global phenomenon, getting rid of the kids and bringing in a band of pensioners to face down an otherworldly threat in an otherwise unassuming retirement community. And some pensioners too! Among the series’ esteemed, monster-battling ensemble are Alfred Molina, Geena Davis, Alfre Woodard, Denis O’Hare, Clarke Peters, and Bill Pullman — all of whom are on top form in the show. Alas, despite Deadline‘s sources suggesting a Season 2 writers’ room had already been opened for the series, with the idea of shooting a second and third season back-to-back having even been floated at some stage.
Unfortunately, while The Boroughs premiered on Netflix to mostly positive reviews last month, the disparity between the quality of the feedback and the quantity of viewers has clearly, unfortunately worked against showrunners and co-creators Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, whose talk of their three-season plan for the show in recent weeks only makes today’s news all the more crushing. Now we may never know what was going on with Sam’s [REDACTED] in the [REDACTED] at the end of Season 1. And so all that’s left to say now is may flights of angels sing thee to thy streaming sleep, The Boroughs. We barely knew you but we’ll always remember you.
