In a rather disappointing move, Netflix has decided to cancel the second season of “Archive 81” starring Mamoudou Athie and Dina Shihabi. The show debuted on January 14th and the news comes two months since its release.
The cancellation is equally surprising because the show did break into Nielsen and Netflix’s weekly Top 10 for originals, while also briefly shooting to #1 on Netflix U.S. But as the streamer focused on analysing viewership versus cost in its decisions for renewal, Archive 81 possibly garnered lesser viewership that did not meet the count Netflix had possibly set for the show. However quite obviously enough, the move lives up to Netflix’s rather awful legacy displeasing cancellations of it’s good shows. We saw that happening with David Fincher’s Mindhunter as well.
Archive 81, was produced by James Wan’s Atomic Monster, written and executive produced by Rebecca Sonnenshine, who also debuted as a show-runner. Rebecca Thomas, director of Stranger Things helmed half of the series and executive produced with Sonnenshine while Paul Harris Boardman penned the script.
“Archive 81” follows archivist Dan Turner (played by Athie) taking a mysterious job intended at restoring a set of damaged videotapes from 1994. He soon finds himself restoring an investigatory work into a dangerous cult shot by documentary filmmaker Melody Pendras (played by Shihabi). As Dan gets to know more about Melody’s story, he tries to save her from the terrifying end she met years ago.
This show marked Athie’s third Netflix project after “Uncorked” and “The Getdown”. Meanwhile, Shihabi’s next project is upcoming series ” Painkill