Why Hulu Canceled How To Die Alone After One Season

Airports always carry an air of possibility; everywhere you look, people are doing something new, visiting home, or embarking on a new chapter. Moments of transport in different entertainment mediums pack all that uncertainty into their gutters and move the viewer into a new headspace to consider what has been and what is to come. A show like "How to Die Alone" did double-duty in that regard, because Natasha Rothwell's Hulu series showed how much TV has grown in the last half-decade, and how far the medium still has to go. The streamer decided to cancel the series, citing low viewership, failing to recognize potential when it was staring them right in the face.

"How to Die Alone" is a comedy/drama starring Natasha Rothwell as Mel, an airport worker who's been in emotional limbo for some time and awakens to the possibility of her life being more than just clocking in at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City, New York. She has friends like Rory, played by a delightful Conrad Ricamora, romantic entanglements like her ex, Alex (portrayed by Jocko Sims as a major source of her uncertainty), and hopes that there could be more to this world that she's not privy to. Hulu aired all eight episodes of the first and only season last year, and sadly, made the decision not to pursue more.

Variety reported that "How to Die Alone" would not be getting a renewal, and even the series' star was caught off-guard by the decision. Rothwell penned a statement for the publication that laid out how she was "shocked, heartbroken, and frankly, baffled" by the move to leave Mel's journey unfinished. In other comments, the actress also pointed to the series' critical reception, and her argument that the show was "an undeniable critical, creative and award-winning success" isn't just chest puffing, but an accurate read of so many people's reaction to the series after giving it a chance on Hulu. It's pretty hard for a show to get a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes in this crowded media environment, and a lot of programs that run for longer never reach that high-water mark.

Elsewhere in the Variety reporting, a source close to Onyx Collective, the production company that made "How to Die Alone," argued that the series just didn't garner strong enough viewership to warrant a season 2. This is an interesting argument when the data is either nonexistent for creatives or outside observers to see for themselves, and the apparent weight on the scales for certain popular projects under that streaming umbrella, numbers need not apply for those shows or movies. It's hard not to have a sour taste in your mouth like Rothwell did, after all, the market is absolutely swimming in shows that feel like you've watched them before, and "How to Die Alone" was a concept that felt legitimately fresh.

Onyx Collective was established by Disney to bring stories from people of color and underrepresented populations to market, even as the landscape morphs to make that task harder and harder. Honestly, shouldn't the goal be to produce thoughtful, interesting shows like "How to Die Alone" rather than have to pick their spots so carefully? One thing observers have seen in the streaming era is that there is some real potential for backend success once a show has existed long enough to garner a bigger fan base.

Underpinning this idea, is the fact that those viewers have to be given the kind of time and space to accumulate on their own, and the studios at the center of this story are rarely going to spend the kind of advertising dollars on making viewers aware that a show like "How to Die Alone" even exists. So, it starts a feedback loop of a self-fulfilling prophecy, with studios being able to cancel shows because they "didn't garner big enough viewership," the companies not having to bear any responsibility for, frankly, pitiful marketing efforts and effectively playing defense against their own programming because there's just so much on these services and everything can't get pushed.

"How to Die Alone" is currently being shopped to other streamers and studios because that first season exists as a kind of proof-of-concept for what a season 2 could be, given the opportunity to flourish. Natasha Rothwell is hopeful that the show can still continue, and she should feel like that, because so many fans were just finding "How to Die Alone" when the decision was made to pull the ripcord on the series. One bright spot exists in the fact that there are so many "streaming era" shows that have found life on a different service or channel than they began life on; hope truly does seem to spring eternal.

More than anything, though, I just wonder how long the industry can afford to keep ignoring new ideas in favor of trying to find the next big thing and failing because attention among a dispersed viewership is finite. New shows are literally competing with "Stranger Things" to be the next "Stranger Things," (something like "Paradise" in Hulu's stable of shows) to say nothing of the fact they also face "Fortnite," the movie version of "Minecraft," and whatever else a largely unpredictable base of youth media consumer might find cool next. There's no shame in being a little show that tells a relatable story for communities that don't get served adequately; in fact, there's quite a bit of freedom, and dare I say, possibility left to be explored.