The creator of Netflix’s popular Greek mythology comedy series Kaos has said they are “gutted” at the show’s cancellation after one season.
Charlie Covell posted a message on the Instagram page of the production company Sister for fans who over the past week have voiced their disappointment and anger at Netflix for axing the series.
“Of course I’m gutted not to be making more Kaos, but I don’t want this news to overshadow what we did make,” Covell said. “I’m incredibly lucky to have worked with such an exceptionally talented cast and crew, and I’m extremely proud of our show. Thank you to absolutely everybody involved: it was a herculean team effort, and a huge privilege to work with you all.”
Kaos is a modern-day contemporary retelling of Greek and Roman mythology. The eight-episode series, released on Netflix in late August, stars Jeff Goldblum as a tracksuit-wearing, paranoid Zeus who chains his fellow god Prometheus (Stephen Dillane) to a cliff as punishment for interfering with his rule.
Prometheus enlists the help of three humans – Eurydice (Aurora Perrineau), Ariadne (Leila Farzad) and Caeneus (Misia Butler) – to overthrow Zeus. The show also features Janet McTeer, Killian Scott, Billie Piper and David Thewlis.
It debuted at No 3 in Netflix’s most-watched English-language shows, and a five-star review in the Guardian said it was “a reimagining of Greek mythology that is subtle and intricate, witty, rigorous, hugely intelligent, funny and brutal.”
Fans on social media said premature cancellations were robbing viewers of the opportunity to see the series grow and reach a conclusion. A petition to save Kaos has attracted thousands of signatures.
“This is frustrating,” wrote one fan. “Kaos barely had time to fly. It featured an eclectic cast, incredible diversity and a twist on Greek mythology. Season 2 would have been a banger. If Netflix isn’t going to allow its content to grow, give it up to another platform. It just got started!”
Another said: “Kaos could have gone on for many seasons. Rich source material that global audiences are familiar with. A fresh and engrossing interpretation of the source material. Fantastic acting, directing, casting, writing, editing, cinematography. I don’t understand.”
The news broke via a now deleted post by Perrineau on Instagram in which she said: “This one hurts.”
The actor said that when she was cast she “couldn’t believe that someone SAW me. A girl who’s not only a minority but also a survivor of SA – and you’re telling me that someone thinks I could be one of the leads of a show, have agency, my own mission, and be desirable enough to be the love interest to not only one amazing human but two? I was worthy of that?”
Covell, best known for their TV adaptation of The End of the F***ing World, had envisioned the show as a three-season arc, and previously said the first season’s finale set up several potential storylines for future instalments.
However, while the show’s debut was promising (3.4m views in its first week and 5.9m views in its second), viewership figures dropped by 43% in its third week to 3.4m and further again in its fourth week to 2.2m.
Around this time, Netflix changed the label of the show from Kaos: season 1 to just Kaos, indicating that it was now a limited series.
According to Forbes, the drop-off lined up with other recent shows that have been cancelled by Netflix, whose renewal decisions are primarily based on viewership in the first 28 days of a show’s launch. The streamer places significant emphasis on retaining engagement.
When What’s On Netflix compared the week-to-week evolution of Kaos’s viewership with others that have been renewed by Netflix (Supacell, The Gentlemen, My Life With the Walter Boys), it showed that Kaos was lagging behind.
Cancellations are not exclusively a Netflix problem: Disney+ not only cancelled the Willow sequel series after one season but also removed it from the platform, a decision its writer called “absolutely cruel”.
Writing in the I, the journalist Rachael Sigee said streaming was “supposed to revolutionise how we watch television” but that anyone who had paced out their viewing of Kaos “old-school style” had inadvertently dealt the series a killer blow. “Binge, Netflix says, or else,” she wrote.
Covell paid tribute to the show’s fans for their continued “love and enthusiasm”. They said: “My hope now is that people still continue to discover and enjoy the show: I reckon there are some potential fans out there who might need more time to find it, so please keep talking about Kaos if you enjoyed it.”
