when Netflix was known as the place to go for shows unfairly canned by network TV to be granted a new life? The streaming giant has slowly eroded its positive reputation in favor of becoming the merciless, cancellation-happy content machine which frequently kills acclaimed or promising shows after just one or two seasons. 1q3b43

It’s tragic that Netflix has gone down this dark path, as when it does take a leap and decides to pick up a cult favorite show that died a premature death on network TV the results tend to be stratospherically successful. Think Lucifer, which Fox was foolish enough to cancel and ended up becoming one of Netflix’s biggest ever originals. The same goes for a popular NBC series, one of the rare instances of Netflix picking up a network series this decade. And it definitely paid off.

This high-concept NBC drama is among the most-watched Netflix series around the globe 5r6u29

What popular NBC series am I talking about? It’s Manifest, the supernatural drama that kicked off in 2018 to much fanfare. Starring an ensemble cast, including Once Upon a Time‘s Josh Dallas, Melissa Roxburgh (Valor), and J.R. Ramirez (Jessica Jones), Manifest follows the engers of a flight traveling from Jamaica to New York who discover that, after going through a spot of turbulence, they have now jumped five years into the future.

With the character arcs and overarching mysteries only spiraling and deepening as the series went on, viewers were crushed when NBC junked the series after three seasons in 2021. So it was a giant relief when Netflix swooped in and granted Manifest a full 20-episode fourth and final season. As it happens, fans weren’t the only one glad about this decision as the move proved to be a boon for Netflix when it released in two parts in November 2022 and June 2023.

According to Netflix’s 2023 engagement report, Manifest season 4, part 2 was the 11th most-viewed TV title on the platform last year, with a total 262.6 million hours viewed. This follows on from season 4, part 1 proving equally addictive the previous year, with Netflix s streaming it for a total of 1.37 billion minutes upon its release in November 2022. The full season is also known to have among the highest completion rates of a Netflix original, with 73.1% of s watching until the end.

You see the good that can come from renewing shows instead of axing them, Netflix? Maybe do more of that, huh?

If there was ever an entertainment entity that flawlessly captured the essence of sheer chaos, it would have to be Netflix, and that’s saying quite a bit considering one of its competitors just dropped “HBO” from its name before immediately proceeding to adopt the tagline “the one to watch for HBO.”

Indeed, from its spontaneous roster choices to its counterproductive creative meddling to its apparent willingness to do the very opposite of what it’s become infamous for, you can always count on Netflix to throw a wrench into the proverbial bingo card without breaking a sweat.

Midnight Mass is scary, but not quite as scary as Netflix’s notes to Mike Flanagan 6v1l25

It’s safe to say that studio interference with most all creative projects often end in a reduction in quality for the film or series in question; just ask the Marvel Cinematic Universe, whose creatives are probably contractually obliged to give the studio full control over every third act, CGI army and all.

Such was the case for Midnight Mass, which creator and consistent critical powerhouse Mike Flanagan received more than a fair share of less-than-helpful studio notes on, but none quite so heinous as that cat-murder scene from the inaugural episode, which Flanagan didn’t hold back in expressing his disgust for.

That toxic relationship is a thing of the past now that the horror mastermind has moved on to Prime Video, and frankly, we couldn’t be happier for him.

In a stunning turn of events, Netflix pulls an anti-Netflix and gets rewarded for it 2x1v4

Netflix has become synonymous with the word “cancellation,” with the streamer showing particular apathy towards animation and young adult fantasy; from Inside Job to Lockwood & Co., the rule of the thumb at Netflix is “cancelled until proven renewed.”

So it was all the more uncanny when the streamer completely went against type and picked up Manifest, complete with the promise of a fourth and final season, after it got axed by NBC following its third, inconclusive season. The show would then go on to claim one of the highest completion rates — meaning the amount of households who watched the series from start to finish — on the platform.

Between Manifest and Nimona, hopefully Netflix begins to notice the karmic pattern that comes with taking in stray cancelled shows, instead of piling the shelters themselves.

Dark Universe 2.0 is a bold move, but less so when you have Guillermo del Toro at the helm w50i

Taking another shot at a shared universe that both debuted and bit the dust in the mid-to-late 2010s doesn’t sound like something that inspires much hope. When that shared universe happens to involve Frankenstein and has its keys given to one of the most influential horror maestros of our time, however, it’s a different story.

Indeed, we were all ready to line up for Guillermo del Toro‘s take on the classic monster (not to be confused with the doctor), but the idea of granting him access to the rest of the Universal Monster library – the odds of which are reportedly more than zero – is enough for us to at least mostly cast aside the trauma that was the initial attempt at the Monster Universe and look ahead to what could be an unprecedented step forward for the horror genre.

When in doubt, adapt Journey to the West j6372

Forty adaptations in 23 years apparently hasn’t deterred Netflix from placing their bets on The Monkey King, an animated feature film due to hit queues on August 18; in fact, the streamer seems to take some sort of perverted glee in adding on to the dense collection of Journey to the West-inspired projects, if only for the cheeky way in which it allows the streamer to spit on the notion of originality.

It can’t be knocked too harshly just yet, of course; at a glance, it seems like completely harmless family entertainment that will at least do its job on the charts before fading into obscurity, but especially in a world that’s somehow both obsessed with and repulsed by the industry’s fixation on IP, there’s no shame in feeling lukewarm about this one.

Want Netflix to stop cancelling your favorite shows? Too bad, here’s a sports docies instead 65704v

But even when Netflix does dip its toes into something a bit more adventurous, a sour taste is still unavoidable if it jumps to new projects without finishing the ones they have going on.

To the streamer’s credit, a docies about the United States women’s national soccer team, which houses some of the most intriguing and dynamic sports personalities in the world, definitely sounds like a worthwhile watch. Still, as Netflix continues to wield the cancelation axe with impunity, you have to wonder just how sincerely (or not) the streamer approaches each new project, and whether or not every new show is just another broken toy waiting to happen.

As has been made abundantly clear, Netflix has no interest in salvaging its own canceled shows from the scrapheap, but it is willing to take a chance on somebody else’s, with Manifest proving to be as much of a beneficiary as Lucifer once the streaming service decided to come calling.

Having rewarded patient fans with a bumper fourth and final season, the fantasy drama was allowed to draw to a conclusion that left the majority of fans – which includes legendary author Stephen King – satisfied with how the story was wrapped up.

It would also appear that subscribers remained dedicated to Manifest from beginning to end, after new data named it as one of the platform’s in-house originals with the highest completion rate. According to PlumResearch (via What’s on Netflix), 73.1 percent of viewers who watched the first episode of the fourth season remained true to the cause until the final installment, putting it level with Ginny & Georgia at the head of the pack.

The completion rate is one of the many metrics Netflix uses to determine which projects sink or swim, so it’s cruelly ironic that the one leading the charge wasn’t just canceled by NBC before being rescued from oblivion, but it was also the final run of episodes that didn’t leave the door open for a return or continuation of any kind.

Your favorites might be biting the dust at an alarmingly rapid rate, so maybe stick with it until the finale if you want to do your part in ensuring something you’ve grown attached to lives to fight another day.

The curious case of Manifest is one that’s delighted and enraged Netflix subscribers in equal measure, but at least we know that Stephen King has gotten around to finishing the fourth and final season.

In an age where the streaming service has repeatedly ignited outrage by canceling fan favorite episodic exclusives on a whim, stepping in to save the former NBC series from certain doom to renew it for a bumper fourth run of 20 installments continued the company’s antagonistic method for deciding which projects get to live or die.

Either way, it proved to be a shrewd move given that the back half of season 4 is already the second most-watched show on the platform’s worldwide watch-list behind only Arnold Schwarzenegger’s FUBAR, with King now trying to gauge the reactions of viewers everywhere by wondering what the consensus is.

One of the first s to reply was that of Netflix itself, with the platform no doubt thrilled to be jumping straight into the mentions of such a high-profile and popular figure on social media.

Close behind was Manifest‘s official handle, too, so both the series and its home streamer were evidently excited to get the ball rolling directly after King sought to read the room.

Now that Manifest is over, Netflix will be looking for its next major multi-season success story, but that’s going to prove increasingly difficult to find if it continues axing so many of its most intriguing and ambition OGs with the potential to fill the void.

As the platform continues to hemorrhage subscribers, Netflix can’t seem to find a foothold in the streaming world.

While it inarguably spearheaded the streaming era we are currently living in, Netflix has failed — time and again — to keep up with the competition. A few shining wins in the vein of Stranger Things aren’t enough to distract subscribers from the platform’s slew of unpopular decisions, from preventing family sharing to its ongoing vendetta against its own fantasy offerings.

That vendetta has seen a shocking number of shows — nearly 30 in the last three years alone — receive premature cancelations, despite eager fan followings and, in some cases, sky-high viewership numbers. So if viewership and actual, concrete numbers aren’t enough to save a show from Netflix’s ax, what is? A few lingering s might have the answer, in the form of a new, but already popular, petition.

Netflix has been the target of plenty of petitions over the years, as viewers fight for their favorite shows and urge the platform to make better creative decisions, but this one might just be different. That’s because, rather then leaning on the typical motivations behind these pleas, Manifest fans have their sights set on an alternate target.

A fresh Change.org petition is, instead of fighting for a fresh season of the surreal drama, simply pushing to get more Manifest-adjacent stories on the platform. After fighting for, and successfully obtaining, a final, conclusive season of the series, Manifest fans are instead focused on convincing Netflix that a spin-off is a worthwhile investment. The petition, which already has 1,130 of 1,500 signatures after less than 24 hours on the site, pleads with Netflix to “green light a Manifest Spin Off!”

It also notes, in the petition’s description, that show creator Jeff Rake “said it himself that the conclusion could very well lead itself to a #ManifestSpinOff,” and that’s exactly what fans are demanding.

The altered approach to convincing Netflix might just work to see a Manifest spin-off come to fruition, but will it be worth it? Even if the platform gives a spin-off the green light, it’s unlikely to last long, given Netflix’s propensity for cancelations. With a show like Manifest, which spurs new questions with each fresh episode, it would be brutal to give fans what they want, only to snatch it away after a single season.

A sci-fi thriller has made itself very popular over on Netflix, and now the second half of its final season has landed quite successfully on the platform’s Top Ten. Manifest, the series about survivors of a very bizarre plane incident, is finally tying up all the loose ends as fans are desperate to see what has really been going on this whole time.

The series follows the Stone family after half of them took a delayed flight to save a little money and wound up landing five years later, unchanged, unaged, and completely unaware that any time had ed. If that wasn’t odd enough, all the engers start getting “callings” that lead them to situations that always seem connected. There is a greater power at work here and Ben Stone (Josh Dallas), his sister Detective Michaela Stone, and the rest of his family are determined to find out what that is as a more final destination looms.

The twists and turns in the show as well as the compelling premise have kept fans hooked, and now that the final season has premiered on Netflix, fans are desperate for answers. They almost didn’t get any when the show, which originally aired on NBC was canceled after three seasons in 2021, much to the dismay of fans. Those seasons were then bought by Netflix, and did so well on the platform, quickly topping the charts, that Netflix decided to give the series its final season.

The fourth season was given to us super-sized, with 20 episodes in total that were to be spread out over time. The first 10 episodes were released back in November last year, and the final 10 were released onto the platform on June 2. For those who know the show, this was an extremely appropriate date, though perhaps a year early, but hey, they didn’t want to keep us waiting!

The final season has been watched a total of 39.4 million hours between May 29 and June 4, coming in second on the Global Top Ten, just under the Arnold Schwarznegger-led series, FUBAR which was watched a total of 88 million hours. Fans have been thrilled to see its return and get some closure, including some rather famous lovers of mystery such as Stephen King, who tweeted how happy he was to have the show back.

This is the end of the runway for the sci-fi series though and hopefully, fans will not be left disappointed by the big reveal, if there even is one! You can catch all seasons including the fourth and final season on Netflix now.

The conversation surrounding Netflix’s recurring habit of canceling popular shows is one that stirs up plenty of emotions, but the circumstances regarding the continued existence of Manifest sticks out as a particular bone of contention among many.

Whereas the streaming service wields the axe with reckless abandon to consign dozens upon dozens of favorites from the scrapheap, the shoe was put onto the other foot when it came to the popular supernatural mystery. Having been canceled by NBC after three seasons, Netflix swooped in to secure the rights to a fourth and final season of Manifest, with the bumper 20-episode run being split across two installments.

Warrior Nun fans have been campaigning and petitioning for other streamers and networks to pick up their abandoned favorite, but it doesn’t look as though it’s going to happen, which makes it all the more cruelly ironic that when the tables are turned and Netflix acquires an exiled project, which then becomes an instant worldwide sensation.

Per FlixPatrol, the second half of Manifest‘s final season has instantly become a Top 10 hit in 80 countries around the world, which still hasn’t been enough to dislodge Arnold Schwarzenegger’s all-conquering FUBAR from the very top of the charts. As big as the series has become since making the move to Netflix, it’s still got to hurt a lot of people to watch a show canned by another company being given the opportunity to survive and thrive, all while the bigwigs staunchly refuse to acknowledge the ongoing campaigns as the casualties rack up well beyond double digits.

Stephen King has rejoiced the return of the supernatural drama Manifest, which has found a new lease on life thanks to Netflix. King tweeted his reaction to the newest season, saying: “I’m 6 episodes into MANIFEST (NETFLIX). It’s like reuniting with old friends you thought were gone forever.”

Manifest is about the engers and crew of a commercial airliner who, after experiencing a turbulent flight, find themselves five years into the future and entering back into a world that presumed them all dead. The series originally premiered in 2018 on NBC and lasted for three seasons before getting canceled in June 2021. Shortly after, the series found itself on Netflix and quickly topped the charts, leading Netflix to renew the show for a fourth and final season. The first part of the two-part final season premiered on Nov. 4, 2022.

King has since been tracking the developments and posting his thoughts on Twitter. After the announcement that Manifest had been canceled, King aptly tweeted the hashtag: “#SaveManifest.”

He then celebrated when the fourth season was announced, saying: “MANIFEST has been saved. Netflix is ordering a “super-sized” 4th and final season.”

King’s love for the series was not lost on Jeff Rake, the creator of Manifest. Rake went on to reply to King, expressing his appreciation for the master of horror, saying: “There may be no greater influence on my storytelling than you, sir. I am humbled.”

The first 10 episodes of the final season are now available on Netflix, with the last 10 episodes expected to drop in June 2023.

If you thought Netflix would ever run out of new original content, think again, as another season of one of their most popular shows has taken the sword to Manifest’s reign over the charts.

The fifth season of Netflix’s The Crown has colonized the streaming charts like the royal family it’s based on colonized the world around them. One of the biggest biopic series ever, covering the most well-known family in history, it’s perhaps no surprise it’s clocked in a massive nine-digit opening week.

In its opening week, The Crown has cemented itself firmly as number one on the streaming service and seen an incredible 107 million hours viewed proving people are far from sick of the Royal Family. The fifth season focuses on the Royal Family’s tenuous relationships with each other during the 1990s, and yes, tackles the infamous Princess Diana drama which remains a hot topic.

The Crown has quickly ended Manifest’s time atop the streaming charts, with the sci-fi mystery series lasting just one week at number one, although its second week still got an impressive 74 million hours viewed: 20 million more than its first week, which is incredibly impressive.

The royal drama will continue for one final season on Netflix, with it widely speculated its sixth season will focus on the final days of the second Elizabethan era. Whether or not it’ll be deemed too soon to cover the recently deceased Queen in a potentially negative light is something which will undoubtedly be part of the discussion.

The Crown is currently available to stream on Netflix.

The battle for the top spot on Netflix is always viable to heat up with a near endless supply of releases, with the last week seeing two originals go toe-to-toe.

Just narrowly soaring past its competition was the fourth and final season of Manifest, which managed to track just ahead of David Tennant’s latest foray into crime drama, Inside Man. Boasting 57 million hours viewed in its first week, it was just ahead of Tennant’s series which was just why of 53 million hours.

Manifest is the culmination of four seasons of storytelling, and the story behind the series production itself is one to follow. Originally canceled by CBS, then Netflix after its first season, strong viewership (similar to this season), encouraged the streaming giant to push the green button on further seasons, with its fourth season also coming after another threat of cancelation.

Following a mysterious plane journey which somehow skipped forward in time by several years, its cast are forced to unravel the mystery and a greater conspiracy around their absurd flight.

Inside Man, meanwhile, is a BBC production which Netflix picked up the rights to and is already looking like an excellent acquisition. With both Tennant and Stanley Tucci, it’s got a scintillating plot all in just three concise episodes. Both Inside Man and Manifest put an end to From Scratch’s reign over the charts, with Zoe Saldana’s weepy romcom dropping to third (albeit with 50 million hours viewed in its third week).

Inside Man, Manifest, and From Scratch are all available to stream on Netflix.

Ever since Netflix played the knight in shining armor and saved the popular supernatural series Manifest, fans have been impatiently waiting for news about its season four. Well, there is no need to hold your breath anymore as the trailer of part one of the fourth season is finally here! While it marks the beginning of the end, there are still plenty of mysteries left to explore.

Season four will be the final season, comprising of twenty episodes in total that will be split into two parts. The trailer was released during Netflix’s Tudum expo to whet fans’ appetites for the new story.

It begins showing Flight 828’s interaction with the storm that caused those aboard the vessel to lose five and half years of their lives. But the real shocker is the possibility that the storm might have been looking for them. Those who have returned experienced “callings,” a divine voice leading them to discoveries. But a vision showing the Stone family’s gravestones could signify their deaths on June 24, 2024.

More vision alludes to things getting much worse. An apocalyptic future threatens the world and an erupting volcano is shown, along with glowing cards having symbols on them. It’s unclear how this imagery is linked, but as the show likes to remind you, “It’s all connected.” The Stones and their team of trusted allies have 18 months until their death date and they’ll have to follow every lead if they hope to survive this and save everyone.

The trailer also reveals that we will be meeting a very different Cal in the next season. Also, a killer is on the loose going around and killing the engers who were aboard Flight 828 — the hits just keep on coming with no signs of slowing down. Check out the trailer below:

The NBC drama series was canceled from the network after season three but was picked up by Netflix. Series creator Jeff Rake and lead actor Josh Dallas have both shared their gratitude to fans and Netflix for saving Manifest. Season three could’ve been the end of the series, but there was a major push from the people ing it, including super-fan Stephen King, that helped keep the dream alive to finish the story and tie up all the loose ends.

Manifest season four part one comes to Netflix this November 4.

Manifest rose from the network TV graveyard for a second life on Netflix with a season four. Series creator Jeff Rake and lead actor Josh Dallas share how they reacted to the rebirth.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Rake talked about how Melissa Roxburgh, who plays Detective Michaela Stone in the supernatural series, sent him a text message in May 2021 and delivered the good news.

“She said, ‘What is this">Manifest Season four is set two years after the shocking events of the last season. Ben is in a bad way as he searches for a missing person who’s very close to him. The final season comes to Netflix on November 4.

]]>