Why Netflix Canceled Sense8

At the time of writing, it's been a decade since Lilly and Lana Wachowski's "Sense8" premiered on Netflix — a decade during which the entire TV industry has dramatically transformed. The high-concept sci-fi series, which follows eight members of an evolved human subspecies who can share thoughts and consciousness from across vast distances, was one of the very first Netflix originals. Despite the critical success of forerunners like "House of Cards," streaming was still seen by most as a venue for watching older films and TV shows, not a proper replacement for mainstream television.

Now, of course, it's clear that Netflix's plan to turn streaming into a platform for exclusive media was a roaring success, for both better and worse. In those early, unproven days, though, the company was pouring money into its original streaming library, trying to build out a catalog compelling enough to turn heads. That meant hiring the creators of "The Matrix" and giving them what was, at the time, a huge sum of money to produce a show. "Sense8" reportedly cost $9 million per episode to make; it's not an absurd sum by today's standards when you look at shows like "Andor" or "House of the Dragon," but it was a substantially riskier amount to spend on an original project for a still-new streaming platform back then.

That cost, ultimately, led to "Sense8" being canceled after two seasons. Despite strong reviews and a dedicated fan following, "Sense8" didn't garner enough consistent viewership to warrant the high price tag. And it may not have helped that the show's story and structure were far from typical television at the time. Of course, that's also what made the series so great.

If you haven't seen "Sense8," the premise is pretty complicated. In the world of the show, there's a parallel human subspecies called Homo sensori, hidden from the knowledge of most ordinary humans. These people experience a "second birth" of sorts, after which point they become linked to others in groups of eight. This happens at the start of the show with a group of characters spread all over the world — a Chicago cop, a chemist in Mumbai, a bus driver in Nairobi, a transgender hacker in San Francisco, and so on. These eight characters are thrown into a world they previously knew nothing about, all while learning to trust one another and running from a shadowy global organization bent on their species' eradication.

That in itself is a pretty hefty concept to wrap your head around, and the show gets even more complicated because each of the eight main characters has their own isolated storylines and supporting casts in addition to the larger sci-fi plot. "Sense8" was so expensive in large part because it filmed on location all around the world — an approach that lends the show some beautiful imagery and a real sense of global scale.

"Sense8" has a fantastic cast handling really interesting material, and it also bears the usual marks of a Wachowski story: meditations on queerness, transness, transhumanism, sex, emotional expression, and fear of the other. While things get a little muddled in season 2, it's a show unlike any other, and the first season is one of Lilly and Lana Wachowskis' true masterpieces.

Niche appeal, expensive production demands, and the growing pains of a young programming strategy at Netflix all contributed to "Sense8" getting canceled. Fortunately, the fierce passion of its fanbase led to a brief return to wrap up the loose ends. The online outcry and a major petition and letter-writing campaign convinced Netflix to give the Wachowski sisters a chance to complete their story with an extended finale film, which would also stream on the platform. Despite some hesitance at first due to how rushed such an ending would have to be, the creators agreed to come back and give their groundbreaking series a proper sendoff.

The extended finale film premiered on June 8, 2018, a little over a year after "Sense8" season 2 came to an end. And while it does move through things pretty quickly in an effort to give closure to all of the different storylines, it's still a powerful, resonant wrap-up that puts the spotlight on the show's core themes of unity, diversity, and the power of human love and joy.