Why Netflix Split Up The Release Dates for The Get Down‘s First Season

Usually when Netflix premieres a new show, it releases an entire season at a time. Baz Luhrmann’s musical drama The Get Down is an exception.

The series is coming out this Friday, but, for the first time ever, Netflix is releasing only the first half of a season—only six of the episodes will be released. The second half of the season will be released in 2017.

Variety reports that the show has been facing many troubles, including exceeding its budget by $120 million, making it Netflix’s most expensive series yet. It has also faced changing showrunners and delays in production and post-production.

On the Vulture TV Podcast, The Get Down co-creator Stephen Adly Guirgis said that they wanted to release half a season to release something for fans after a two-and-a-half year production cycle: “They’re like, ‘Let’s get this show rolling.’ That had everything to do with splitting the season in two.”

However, the decision to split up the release dates also led to other unanticipated problems. In an interview with Variety, Guirgis explained:

What’s difficult about it was that we were writing in parts. We had sort of a three-act structure, which then became like a two-act structure with a P.S. at the end. But originally we wrote it to all be happening in a row. So where we end part one, it’s not exactly like a cliffhanger. And that’s a little disappointing to me. Because if we had known we were splitting it, we could have really made people suffer.

The Get Down follows the lives of six South Bronx teenagers during 1977 New York City. The show focuses on the rise of hip-hop and stars Justice Smith, Herizen Guardiola, Shameik Moore, Skylan Brooks, T.J. Brown Jr. and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.