Trigger Warning: The mention of sexual assault in this article may be triggering to some readers. Please take care while reading.
In a devastating but unsurprising turn of events, another well-received queer show with immense potential has been canceled. Dead Boy Detectives joins the large club of queer shows canceled by Netflix. Although this news devastated the fans, some (including me) would tell you this announcement wasn’t totally surprising.
Why is that? Why is it that when a good show with good ratings and a devoted fanbase gets the axe, it isn’t shocking?
Well, for many queer TV watchers, this song and dance is as old as it is tiresome. Many shows with queer leads, especially in the era of streaming, haven’t made it past its first season. Is this just an unfortunate reality of Hollywood, or is something more sinister at play?
Case Closed For Dead Boy Detectives
On August 30th, Netflix announced it canceled Dead Boy Detectives after one season. The show, an adaptation of a DC Comics series by the same name, followed two teenage ghosts, Edwin Payne and Charles Rowland, who solve the mysteries of other ghosts to help them move on to their afterlives. It was also the second show set in the Sandman universe, the universe of Netflix’s adaptation of the Sandman comics from DC. It premiered on April 25th, 2024, with all eight episodes dropping that same day.
The show included a fascinating (and queer!) mix of characters, from a psychic suffering from amnesia to a goth sapphic butcher to a crow familiar turned human. Really, you couldn’t throw a stone ten feet without hitting a character with queer over- and undertones. That, combined with the intriguing storylines, beautiful cinematography, and gorgeous music, all seemed like a show that would last forever.
So of course it didn’t.
This news was a gut punch for the fans, cast, and crew of the show. After four months of eagerly awaiting any renewal news, the final bomb drop was the end of a long torture session. Still, the decision confused and frustrated many watchers, myself included.
Dead Boy Detectives was well-received overall. The show received a 93% approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes and even reached number three in Nielsen’s US charts. According to Deadline, the show had 12.6 million views from April to June, which is on the lower side for four months. Even so, the show managed to be one of the most-viewed series on Netflix from January to June. This also doesn’t account for the views it had in July and August.
I’ve never been a good judge of whether a show is successful or not. If I watched it and liked it, it must have been good, right? Often, I’m proven wrong when I bring up a show’s title and no one else has even heard of it.
But these numbers seem undeniable — people wanted more Dead Boy Detectives. And much like the characters of the actual show, some fans are refusing to let Death take their show quietly.
#SaveDeadBoyDetectives
Since the official announcement of the cancellation, there has been an ongoing social media campaign asking Netflix to renew the show for a second season. On X, people have started tagging Netflix in posts that use a number of hashtags, including #SaveDeadBoyDetectives, #RenewDeadBoyDetectives, and, most recently, #OurGhostsMatter.
Alongside consistent social media campaigns, an online petition is also circulating. As of this writing, the petition has over 4,600 signatures. Most of the calls to renew are aimed at Netflix, but some have also reached out to Max, which also hosts several DC shows and movies.
While Netflix (or any other streaming platform) hasn’t answered the calls for the fans, these efforts may not be totally fruitless. Canceled shows have been revived before. Warrior Nun, a fantasy drama that premiered on Netflix in 2020, was canceled in 2022 after two seasons. Fans also started a petition to save it, which eventually worked — in 2023, the show’s creator announced the series would be revived as a trilogy of movies. The movies wouldn’t be produced by Netflix, but the fan’s efforts to save their beloved show caught the attention of other production companies.
Netflix has even reversed its own decision before. In 2017, Netflix canceled its queer sci-fi series Sense8 after two seasons, which would have left the series on a massive cliffhanger. Thanks to criticism against this decision, Netflix agreed to a two-hour-long special that wrapped up the storyline. So, there is hope.
An Unfortunate Casualty?
It’s safe to say we’ve established why ratings and audience enthusiasm aren’t the reasons why the show got the axe. So if it’s none of those reasons, then what’s left?
Unfortunately, it could be because of the series’ co-creator himself.
A few months after Dead Boy Detectives premiered on Netflix, sexual assault allegations came out against the show’s creator, Neil Gaiman. In July, two women alleged sexual assault against Neil Gaiman, with more women speaking up with their own claims in the following months.
Gaiman, the co-creator of the Dead Boy Detectives and Sandman comics, was a creative mind behind multiple projects that have gained critical acclaim and cult followings in the past decades. His books Coraline and Good Omens have widely successful adaptations, and his literary career has a following of its own. People particularly loved Good Omens for the relationship between Aziraphel and Crowley, played by Michael Sheen and David Tennant respectively.
Although Netflix has yet to address the claims against Gaiman, other production companies adapting his works have. Disney, which was adapting Gaiman’s 2008 novel The Graveyard Yard Book, has halted production on the film. Similarly, production on the third and final season of Prime Video’s Good Omens series has paused. Gaiman, who was heavily involved in the previous two seasons, has reportedly offered to step back from Good Omen’s production while investigations into the allegations continue.
While Gaiman is undoubtedly a part of our cultural zeitgeist, that doesn’t prevent him from taking accountability for his actions. Gaiman himself has denied the allegations, but given his authority and the fact that both alleged victims started as fans of his work, the networks producing his adaptations must protect their cast and crew.
Neither Prime nor Netflix released a statement once the allegations became public, but Gaiman was a producer on both Good Omens and Dead Boy Detectives. We’ve seen Good Omens pause production, so these streaming giants may be taking a quieter approach to handling Gaiman.
This is just a theory, but it’s possible Netflix canceled Dead Boy Detectives to sever ties with Gaiman. The allegations came only a few months after the show premiered, and before any discussion of renewal took place. By that point, Gaiman’s name had more negative press than good, and to save face, Netflix decided to cut the project altogether.
Again, this is just a theory, and there’s no way to prove this unless someone directly involved with the show’s cancellation says something. But if it is true, it is infinitely awful how someone who profits off queer people’s enjoyment is the same person who’s responsible for taking away their representation.
No matter how let down fans feel, people like Gaiman need to be brought to justice for their actions. It is always disappointing when someone we admire lets us down. Even if we’ve never met them, we think we know them through their art and their writing. After all, how can someone who created something so beautiful be capable of something so heinous?
What’s happening now is an ideal outcome — major studios are believing victims and cutting their associations with an alleged predator. Gaiman is losing money, reputation, and opportunities for his actions.
Which is how it should be.
But two truths can exist at once. We can be glad that Gaiman is facing the consequences of his actions and also sympathize with the people who dedicated months and years of their lives to shows based on his works. Gaiman’s actions didn’t happen in a vacuum. Whether or not Gaiman’s actions are why Netflix decided to cancel the show, people are losing their livelihoods. Queer folks are losing their chance to see themselves on TV.
A Gruesome Pattern Emerges
Problematic creator aside, Dead Boy Detectives is not the first queer show to get axed after only one season, and it will probably not be the last. In reality, Netflix has a nasty habit of striking down their queer shows (especially the fantasy ones) before they can reach their prime.
Half Bad and First Kill are two more examples of queer shows with fantasy elements that didn’t make it past their initial eight episodes. I can admit I didn’t watch either of these shows, but I also didn’t hear about them until they were canceled.
It’s funny how the loudest promotion for a show seems to come once it’s already been struck down.
Maybe these were instances where the numbers and audience interest just weren’t there. Fine, that happens.
But what about Shadow and Bone? Shadow and Bone was a highly anticipated series that adapted the works in Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse and performed well when both seasons dropped, and had a growing fan base.
Still, Netflix canceled it only months after the second season went live. The streaming giant cited the 2023 SAG-AFTRA and 2023 Writers Guild of America as why they couldn’t move forward with Shadow and Bone or the Six of Crows spin-off, which was already written.
It seems suspicious that of all the shows to cancel, Netflix would choose the one that had some of the site’s highest watch hours in the first half of 2023.
But what do I know? Maybe they had completely legitimate and fair reasons for ending these shows that they haven’t yet decided to share with the public.
It seems like Netflix would want to share as much information as possible to quell the audience’s upset. After all, it isn’t a good look when they dedicate so much time, money, and marketing efforts to shows that don’t offer as much queer representation. And yet, Netflix remains strangely mum when ending the lives of the shows they once so eagerly presented to us.
Let’s Hope For Better
One thing I’ve learned from my years of hyperfixating on TV and movies is to have low expectations. Sometimes the miracle isn’t that the show is made perfectly — it’s that it’s made at all.
Every TV watcher faces the horrible reality that their favorite show may come to an end, yet this fate seems to transpire for queer watchers the most. Media has gotten better at bringing queer stories to life, but there is still a lot of work to be done until queer media is as normalized as straight media.
The rate at which queer shows get canceled makes it seem hopeless, but we can’t give up on the things we love. What we watch matters. Even if the streaming companies or production studios don’t see it, we see it. The cast and crews see it.
Eventually, there will come a time when queer shows live longer than just one or two seasons. But until that time comes, we wait.
And we watch.
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