Word has officially broken that Blockbuster, the Netflix comedy series, is going under – much like its real-world counterpart. After spending just one season and a little over a month on Netflix, Blockbuster has been cancelled by the streaming service, and it’s news that, unfortunately, isn’t terribly surprising, given the show’s ratings while it was still airing.
Hailing from Vanessa Ramos, David Caspe, and Jackie Clarke, Netflix‘s Blockbuster first premiered in November 2021. The series is a workplace comedy that centers around the staff of a Blockbuster Video in Grandville, Michigan – the last Blockbuster store in all of existence. When the store gets news Blockbuster corporate is sinking, and fast, the store manager Timmy Yoon (Randall Parker) and his staff – including love interest Eliza Walker (Melissa Fumero), Connie Serrano (Olga Merediz), Carlos Herrera (Tyler Alvarez), Hannah Hadman (Madeline Arthur), and Kayla Scott (Kamaia Fairburn) – must throw everything they have into keeping the store afloat and staying relevant to the times, all while each dealing with their own complex personal relationships.
Blockbuster being picked up by Netflix in 2021 was a decision that many viewers saw a lot of irony in since in real life, Netflix was the on-demand streaming service that spearheaded the charge against video rental stores like Blockbuster and ultimately saw the store’s demise.
‘Blockbuster’ Receives Mixed Reviews at an ‘Inherent Disadvantage’
Aside from the irony involved in its very existence, Blockbuster’s ten-episode first season on Netflix received reviews that were lukewarm, at best; Rotten Tomatoes gives the series a 45% audience score and a 22% critics score, and out of Metacritic’s 23 reviews on the series, 17 were listed as “mixed”. Blockbuster also never managed to get a spot on Netflix’s Top 10, a fact that likely had a hand in Blockbuster being cancelled by Netflix.
However, Netflix’s decision to cancel Blockbuster may be partially hindered by the metric that Netflix uses to gauge a show’s popularity by measuring the hours each show is watched. By this measure, Deadline reports that comedies like Blockbuster are at an “inherent disadvantage”, thanks to the fact that comedies tend to run shorter than Netflix’s more popular drama or dramedy series. That’s not to say that comedies like Cobra Kai and Emily in Paris can’t succeed, but it does make it somewhat unlikely.
Season 1 of Blockbuster is currently available to stream on Netflix.
