Netflix has canceled the audacious, multilingual sci-fi show 1899 after a scant six weeks of being available to stream. To be clear, this is not the show that stars Faith Hill (that’s 1883) or Harrison Ford (that’s 1923). In fact, this show doesn’t take place in the Taylor Sheridan year-verse at all. Concocted by Dark co-creators Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, 1899 started by asking, “What if there was a ship, and then there wasn’t a ship?†From there, the show expanded ever outward to question the very nature of reality itself. Apparently, Netflix wasn’t onboard and decided to pull the plug on the show after one season. Odar and Friese released a joint statement confirming the show’s end on Instagram.
The series started as keenly observed period piece, then became what Vulture’s Roxana Hadadi likened to what would happen if “Inception, Strange Days, The Matrix, Westworld, The Terror, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind were thrown into a centrifuge.†Considering Westworld was canceled this season, is it any surprise 1899 followed suit? Maybe its fate was always predetermined.