5 brilliant OTT shows cancelled too soon without a proper goodbye: Anne with an E to Mindhunter

Streaming giveth, and streaming taketh away, usually right after a cliffhanger. These five shows built loyal fandoms, got great reviews, and were axed before they could tie up their stories. Grab tissues, a petition link, and maybe the source novel. We never got to see Anne and Gilbert building a life together, or more whackiness of Lady Jane, or the Darkling solution in Shadow and Bone.

Sigh, what are the odds of them ever returning?

Anne had questions. Gilbert had questions, and well, so do we.

The gut punch here is timing. The cancellation was announced the day after the Season 3 finale aired on CBC, and a full month before international viewers even got the season on Netflix (January 3, 2020). Fans outside Canada binged it already knowing it was the end.

Where it left us: Anne and Gilbert finally got their long-awaited romance, which helps, a little, but fans were still waiting to see them flourish as a couple, as they did in the books, written by LM Montgomery. In the books, Anne and Gilbert get married, have six children, and go through a wholesome, sweet life together before the First World War strikes their lives. The CBC said the show didn't grow its audience enough among viewers aged 25–54. The wider backdrop: the CBC had just moved away from co-producing with Netflix, with its CEO arguing the partnerships hurt Canada's domestic industry.

The fan fight: #RenewAnneWithAnE trended worldwide, fans crowdfunded billboards in Toronto's Yonge-Dundas Square and New York's Times Square, and Ryan Reynolds joined in. The Change.org petition passed one million signatures in 2020, a record at the time for an entertainment petition aimed at Netflix. Creator Moira Walley-Beckett tried to find a new home or make a finale movie, and couldn't. Fans are still revolting.

Closure odds: 0/5. Producer Miranda de Pencier said plainly in 2019 that a revival will not happen.

Where: Netflix · Run: 2 seasons (April 2021, March 2023) · Axed: November 15, 2023

Netflix took out a whole universe. The cancellation also scrapped the planned Six of Crows spinoff about Kaz, Inej, Jesper and the rest of the Crows, the characters many fans loved most.

Where it left us: Season 2 was built as a launchpad. Alina tries to use her light-based power and summons shadow instead, hinting the Darkling left something dark in her. Nikolai is crowned king but carries a wound from one of the Darkling's shadow monsters. The Crows are teed up for their biggest heist yet, with the jurda parem drug plot openly teased. None of it goes anywhere.

Why it died: Deadline reported "performance vs. cost" as the main factor. Season 2 still hit Netflix's global Top 10 but faded faster than Season 1, and strike-related delays pushed a possible Season 3 even further out.

The fan fight: A petition to save the show and the spinoff passed 200,000 signatures. Author Leigh Bardugo said she was heartbroken and deeply disappointed, while calling herself one of the lucky authors proud of her adaptation.

Closure odds: 1/5. No revival is in sight. But the books exist: the Six of Crows duology and King of Scars cover much of what Season 3 and the spinoff would have adapted.

Where: Prime Video · Run: 1 season, 8 episodes (all released June 27, 2024) · Axed: August 2024

The real Lady Jane Grey ruled England for nine days. Her TV show lasted about seven weeks. This cheeky alt-history romp reimagined Tudor England with shapeshifters (the Ethians) oppressed by ordinary humans (the Verities), and gave Jane the rescue history never did.

Where it left us: To be fair, Jane and Guildford (Emily Bader and Edward Bluemel) get a genuinely swoony happy ending. Everything around them stays on fire: Mary holds the throne, Jane's family is still within her reach, and Jane plans to return and fight for Ethian rights. The narrator even closes with a promise that the story isn't over. It was.

Why it died: Critics loved it, with a 94% Rotten Tomatoes score. But it never cracked Nielsen's streaming Top 10, and social media buzz didn't turn into enough viewers. Plenty of fans blamed thin marketing.

The fan fight: Loud online outrage, and co-creator Gemma Burgess had said before the news that Jane's story was not yet done. The show only adapted about half of the novel, so the source material had room to run.

Closure odds: 1/5. No platform has picked it up. The book by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows is your best bet for more Jane.

Where: Paramount+ · Run: 3 seasons, 33 episodes, June 2021–July 2023 · Axed: October 2023

The news broke in the most iCarly way possible: cast member Laci Mosley (Harper) posted "It's cancelled, babes" on X before the trades had it. Painful, because the revival did the thing fans waited over a decade for. It finally put Carly and Freddie together.

Where it left us: In the finale, "iHave a Proposal," Carly admits she's wary of marriage because their mother abandoned her and Spencer as kids. Carly and Freddie, dating for about seven episodes, charge toward a wedding anyway. Then their long-absent mom walks in. Cut to black, forever.

Why it died: Paramount+ gave no real reason. It was among the streamer's most-watched originals in 2021. Its statement said the show had "delivered on what fans really wanted," meaning Creddie, which landed badly with fans who wanted to meet Mom.

The fan fight: A chorus of angry comments and #Creddie grief, plus a very determined lead. Miranda Cosgrove kept publicly pushing for a wrap-up film.

Closure odds: 3/5. The best on this list. In September 2025, Cosgrove said a movie was being written and aimed to film in early 2026, picking up from the cliffhanger with Mom central to the plot. Treat it as promising, not certain: by mid-2026, cast updates still talked about script drafts, and no distributor has been officially confirmed.

Where: Netflix · Run: 2 seasons (October 2017, August 2019) · Axed: Shelved January 2020, confirmed dead in 2023

The slowest-motion cancellation on this list. Nobody ever formally pulled the plug. Netflix put Season 3 on hold, released the cast from their contracts in January 2020, and left fans refreshing for three years until David Fincher himself confirmed it was over.

Where it left us: For two seasons, the show planted creepy cold-open scenes of Dennis Rader, the real-life BTK Killer, slowly getting away with it. Season 2 ended with him still free. Fincher's plan was to follow the FBI's profilers into the late '90s and early 2000s, all the way to police knocking on Rader's door. Fans never got the knock.

Why it died: Depends who you ask. Fincher told Variety it was an expensive show with a passionate audience that never delivered numbers to justify the cost. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said in August 2026 that it was really about Fincher's schedule: he moved on to Mank and couldn't do both.

The fan fight: Years of "Season 3 when?" and fake "OFFICIALLY HAPPENING!!" ads online. Stars Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany have both said they'd return in a heartbeat.

Closure odds: 1.5/5. In June 2025, McCallany said Fincher told him it might return as three two-hour Netflix movies, with writers working on scripts. McCallany himself called it only a chance, and nothing has been announced since.