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Orange Is the New Black'S sentence is up. Netflix announced this week that the show's seventh season, hitting the next year, would be its last. After that, it's dunzo. Litchfield has been a part of the conversation for a long time now. But for everyone else, and for the future of TV broadly, it's a move that's long overdue.
For quite some time, it looks like it Netflix, with its seemingly bottomless coffers and try-anything attitude, would never cancel anything. The company usually renews shows as soon as they hit the platform; it was only expensive deadweights like The Get Down that ever saw the axis. Recently, though, that's starting to change. The streaming service just pulled the plug on the Marvel show Iron Fist after two seasons, and Everything Sucks After one-and-comedy Michelle Wolf's talk show The Break after only 10 episodes. Netflix's let's go to programming, it seems, is coming to an end.
But wait!, you say. It's not like Orange Is the New Black is getting unceremoniously axed. Seven seasons is a long run! Yes, that's true; and compared to something like Everything Sucks, OITNB got more than enough time in the sun. But it's a popular show, and one of Netflix's flagship original programs. It's partially responsible for binge-watching becoming a thing. Coupled with the news that House of Cards The old guard is going to be phased out. (Yes, HoC Kevin Spacey-related reasons, but if ending for other The Conners has taught us anything, popular TV shows can survive problematic stars.) And frankly, Netflix-and its subscribers-are better off.
It's that OITNB and HoC are not laudable shows, it's just that their time has passed. Both of them were better in their first few seasons, and unleashed with the network TV model where successful shows can limp along way past their prime, Netflix is pulling the plug. People think of the streaming service's $ 8 billion budget-85 percent of which is earmarked for original programming-like it's a Scrooge McDuck money pit, but it's not. And now that it's not the only big player in the streaming game, it's got to practice austerity. Amazon and Hulu are already spending billions on content, and will likely be far behind the world. Netflix is also competing with Netflix for Emmys and Golden Globes.
If viewers are going to share with shows like Orange Is the New Black, than one hopes they'll get better programming in its place. Maybe it's a show of money for the next great sci-fi show like Black Mirror gold Altered Carbon. (It also might be a great show to showcase Jenji Kohan to make the next Great Idea series.) It could also be that the cash just goes to Netflix-contracted creators like Ryan Murphy (American Horror Story, American Crime Story) and / or Shonda Rhimes (Gray's AnatomyNetflix makes it "the highest-paid showrunner in television."
The clearing away of relatively old programs could also pave the way for Netflix's ever-increasing film efforts. The company has been bold in its push for both big-show fare like Bright and Oscar hopefuls like Alfons Cuarón's soon-to-be-released Roma. Netflix's movie strategy has a lot of things to do. Maybe the company's recent spate of cancellations indicates that it's going to be refocused on the content it's looking to release. So long, space-fillers like Lovesick (born Scrotal Recall); Hello, Mudbound.
Of course, it's almost impossible to know Netflix's plan for certain; Given that it is not even the case that they know their shows, it is not the company that is going to be up front about their internal decision-making. But in announcing the end of Orange Is the New Black, the company has gotten rid of it to death.
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