Why Archive 81 was cancelled — and the chances of a season 2

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"I think there are more stories to tell."

Archive 81 spoilers follow.

Like most Netflix shows, Archive 81 largely came out of nowhere to climb to the top of the streamer's Top 10 chart — even if its reign proved short-lived after Netflix abruptly hit eject on the horror hit. But if you play back the tape on Archive 81, the first season of the original series had a solid horror pedigree.

Based on the 2016 narrative podcast of the same name, the story follows a video archivist named Dan (Mamoudou Athie) after he's hired to piece together a series of recovered documentary tapes from the mid-1990s. The assorted cassette tapes could hold the answer to what may have caused the fire that destroyed the mysterious Visser apartment complex.

As Dan digs deeper into the tapes and story, he becomes enamoured with Melody Pendras (Dina Shihabi), the young woman recording and narrating the tapes as part of a documentary project. From tape to tape, Dan tags along as Melody investigates a cult seemingly based out of the Visser, following as she unravels threads about everything from time travel to a mystical mould, even to an alternate dark plane of existence.

After dropping on January 14, 2022, the first season of Archive 81 briefly climbed into the No. 1 spot on Netflix's Top 10 chart in the U.S., and also popped up on Nielsen's Top 10 ranking of US streaming originals. Even better, critics raved about the slow-boil horror tale as it drew an excellent 86 per cent overall rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

That's why fans were shocked when word broke on March 24, 2022 — just a little over two months after the first season's debut — that Netflix would not be renewing the series for a second season. Just as millions of fans binged along with Dan's story and got hooked on the Visser, they learned the tape had abruptly ran out.

In an interview with The Wrap around the release of the series, showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine made clear the project was built to run for multiple seasons and was never envisioned as an anthology.

"I think there are more stories to tell," she said. "I think we end on a good cliffhanger that needs to be addressed, and we introduce a lot of characters that surround Dan and Melody that have very rich and interesting lives to explore further. So yeah, we hope to keep going."

As for what fans might have expected in a second season, Sonnenshine noted to EW they worked hard to plant seeds for future stories in the first run of episodes. So if you want to know where the story would have gone, the best way forward is to look closely at where it has already been.

"There are a lot of little Easter eggs or little things like that, that if you're like, 'I wonder if that's something that is part of the mythology and that will be explored further?' And, yes," she added.

"Some things just didn't actually make it into the season. When you build a mythology series, you build out all this mythology, and then you're like, 'Oh, we don't have room for all that.' So that was a piece that we ended up saving for season 2… All I can do, because I'm such a fan of television and shows like this, is talk. We'd talk a lot about what would we want to see, and what would make us excited, and then just try to execute that."

So why did Netflix axe the series so quickly, even after it charted and scored great reviews? Not surprisingly, the streaming service has remained relatively quiet about the decision. Sonnenshine commented briefly after word of the cancellation became public, thanking fans with the hope that this show can still carve out its placed in short-lived horror lore. Unfortunately, she didn't offer any details on why this cancellation happened in the first place.

"Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who watched Archive 81. Thank you to the reviewers who were so kind and thoughtful," she posted on Twitter. "We're surprised and disappointed that we won't be doing another season (we had cool new stories/found footage/Kaelego-lore planned). I hope you'll remember us well!"

Netflix makes pretty much every decision based on internal data that accounts for everything from viewer retention, episode starts, project budget and how quickly a show spikes and falls in viewership. As Deadline notes, it's likely that — despite substantial success and critical raves — Archive 81 simply couldn't maintain enough momentum for Netflix to believe a second season could meet or outpace the success of season one.

It's a shame, because the series connected with viewers by telling a compelling story in a new way, using a mix of mediums and some old-fashioned analog crackle and static that stayed true to the spirit of the creepy podcast it was adapting.

Instead of the story itself being told directly to the audience through recorded tapes, viewers followed Dan as he explored them himself, navigating the past and present as he tried desperately to save Melody from a tragedy that happened almost 30 years ago.

The supernatural elements were also just the right kind of bonkers, as the story wore its weirdness on its sleeve by building out its world with myriad questions and intriguing avenues just begging to be explored further.

It's a very different product, but it had the same type of creepy potential fans saw in Stranger Things back in that show's inaugural season. Potential, but sadly without the runway to explore it.

So what should fans do now that any hope for a second season is wandering in the dark realm? There's always the podcast that started it all. The original Archive 81 podcast actually ran for three full seasons, plus two ancillary miniseries bookending season three.

The TV adaptation admittedly took some liberties with the story of the podcast, but for fans of the show, it has the same roots of the same story — and with the breathing room to dig a whole lot deeper into what was really going on with those tapes.

Archive 81 season 1 is streaming now on Netflix.

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