Netflix has cancelled The Duffer Brothers sci-fi drama The Boroughs after a single season, ending the show less than a month after its debut on the streaming platform.

Created by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews and executive produced by Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer, The Boroughs followed a group of residents at a seemingly idyllic retirement community who discover a sinister supernatural force lurking beneath the surface.

The series starred Alfred Molina, Geena Davis, Alfre Woodard, Bill Pullman, Denis O’Hare, and Clarke Peters as a “a crew of unlikely heroes [who] must stop an otherworldly threat from stealing the one thing they don’t have: time”.

After premiering on 21 May, the eight-episode series opened to generally positive reviews, with some fans describing it as “intriguing” and a “must-watch”, while others called it “Stranger Things meets an old folks community”.

Despite its 97 per cent critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes, viewing figures appear to have fallen short of expectations for a big-budget Netflix sci-fi release. According to Netflix’s weekly Top 10 data, The Boroughs drew 5.6 million views in its opening four days and peaked at 9.5 million in its first full week before falling to 3.7 million a week later.

According to Deadline, which first reported the cancellation, Netflix decided not to proceed with a second season despite prior conversations around renewal, as well as opening a season two writers’ room.

People familiar with the matter told the outlet that filming seasons two and three back-to-back had also been discussed.

Cost appears to have been a significant factor in the cancellation decision. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the series’ heavy use of visual effects made it an expensive proposition.

At the same time, the Duffer Brothers have moved from Netflix to start a new chapter with Paramount Pictures, where they recently signed a four-year deal that covers film, television, and streaming. Their first project under the partnership is an as-yet untitled theatrical “event film”, set to be released in November 2028.

The Boroughs was one of several projects released by the Duffer Brothers after their breakout sci-fi phenomenon Stranger Things ended with its fifth and final season on 31 December 2025.

Since the flagship series ended, the brothers have been involved in other projects under Netflix, including the animated spinoff Stranger Things: Tales From ’85’, which has already been renewed for a second season, and the limited series Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen.

In interviews, the show’s creators have previously discussed plans for the series and where it was likely to lead next. “We learned a hard lesson on Dark Crystal: Don’t end on a cliffhanger,” Adiss told Entertainment Weekly in May, about his Netflix series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, which also ended up being cancelled after one season.

“So the end of the season [of The Boroughs] is an emotional wrap-up but opens a door and hints at where we wanna go in the next season — and even a little bit into the season after that.”

He had also confirmed to the outlet that a “three-season plan with ideas about spinoffs after that” already existed.

The growing list of Netflix shows axed after one season

In the last few years, Netflix has repeatedly cancelled big-budget genre series despite strong critical reception and vocal fan support. In January 2023, the streamer cancelled 1989, the ambitious multilingual mystery series from the creators of Dark, less than two months after release.

Archive 81, a supernatural horror drama inspired by the podcast of the same name, met a similar fate in March 2022. The series spent four weeks in Netflix’s global top 10 and peaked at No 2 before being axed after a single season.

The Dark Crystal prequel Age of Resistance was cancelled mere months after it won the Emmy for outstanding children’s programme in 2020.

Mythological dark comedy Kaos, the mythological dark comedy starring Jeff Goldblum as Zeus, was cancelled in 2024 only weeks after its debut, despite spending four weeks in the platform’s global top 10 and ending on a major cliffhanger. The cancellation led to major fan outrage and a petition that saw more than 20,000 signatures demanding its renewal.

That same year, Netflix also pulled the plug on Dead Boy Detectives, the supernatural detective drama set in The Sandman universe, after just one season.