Editor’s Note: TV moves on, but we haven’t. In our feature series It Still Stings, we relive emotional TV moments that we just can’t get over. You know the ones, where months, years, or even decades later, it still provokes a reaction? We’re here for you. We rant because we love. Or, once loved. And obviously, when discussing finales in particular, there will be spoilers:
The world of The Sandman is a limitless playground, a universe full of so many intriguing possibilities that around every corner lies a new adventure. For a brief moment in 2024, we were lucky to experience one of those adventures in the form of Netflix’s Dead Boy Detectives, a coming-of-age series merging elements of comedy, fantasy, horror, and mystery. The not-quite-a-spinoff follows two ghosts: the prim Edwin Payne (George Rexstrew), who spent years being tortured in hell and still carries the emotional scars, and his strong and confident best friend, Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri). The two teens have shunned the afterlife to spend their days on Earth helping other ghosts by solving their supernatural maladies. The resulting series is a warm and emotionally fulfilling story about found family, self-discovery, and finding light in life’s darkness. Never afraid of being too weird, the show is as entertaining as they come. But just as quickly as it appeared in our lives, the show was ripped away by the cruel hands of fate, and its cancellation still hurts nearly a year later.
Developed by The Flight Attendant’s Steve Yockey, Dead Boy Detectives was initially created for HBO Max, intended to tie into the platform’s DC Comics superhero series Doom Patrol. However, once James Gunn took control of all things DC for Warner Bros. Discovery, the series no longer fit the company’s creative plans and it was sold to Netflix, where it was set within the extended world of The Sandman (a pragmatic choice given Charles and Edwin were introduced during the Season of Mists storyline in the popular comics). Last-minute changes were made to connect the two shows, with Death (Kirby) and Despair (Donna Preston) both making appearances. But while The Sandman is narratively dense and can feel inaccessible to those without knowledge of its source material, Dead Boy Detectives rarely feels this way, and the primary reason for this is that it uses elements of the supernatural to tell universally understood stories through a case-of-the-week format.
Each episode features a unique mystery, whether it’s ghosts stuck in a time loop, a sea monster calling people to their deaths, or a young woman (Yuyu Kitamura’s Niko, a true delight) playing host to the hilarious but deadly creatures known as dandelion sprites. With the help of Crystal Palace (Kassius Nelson), a teenage psychic who has lost her memories after being possessed by a demon, the boys solve the unsolvable. Overarching storylines involving an immortal witch (Jenn Lyon) with a vendetta, a frisky Cat King (Lukas Gage) who takes an interest in Edwin, and a night nurse (Ruth Connell) tasked with locating spirits who should be in the afterlife are seamlessly woven in and propel the series forward as the boys and Crystal close cases each week. But it’s the emotional arcs of its two leads, including Edwin’s journey of self-acceptance as he slowly comes to understand he’s not only allowed to have feelings for the same sex but that he’s also in love with his best friend, that ultimately gives the show its beating heart.
The easy friendship between Edwin and Charles was formed over many decades after the former comforted the latter as he was dying from hypothermia at the same boarding school where Edwin had been an accidental ritual sacrifice many years earlier. Their relationship is the unshakable foundation of Dead Boy Detectives, and its strength is routinely on display, most notably when Charles travels to hell to rescue Edwin in the series’ penultimate episode. Regardless of whether or not Charles eventually reciprocates Edwin’s professed romantic feelings—the series leaves open the possibility rather than shutting it down completely as lesser shows would—the series is undeniably a heartfelt love story. And it’s better and stronger for embracing it; without their connection to act as a solid base upon which to build, the series would likely fall apart under the sheer weight of its own ambition.
Because the show is ambitious. It seamlessly balances multiple genres without missing a step. It’s as funny as it is campy as it is hauntingly beautiful. In many ways, the show feels like a relic of a different time, like it was forged in the depths of The CW during the network’s heyday when it took storytelling risks no other network dared and was home to groundbreaking shows that centered the stories of young people. This makes sense when you consider the show’s creative team; both Yockey and executive producer Jeremy Carver worked on the long-running Supernatural, while co-showrunner Beth Schwartz spent years on the game-changing superhero show Arrow. Meanwhile, series executive producers Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schecter had their hands in too many CW shows to count. All this experience behind the scenes means the powers that be knew what made good television, and they understood how to build a show to last.
So, with its easily repeatable setup and a creative story engine that could cook up a near-endless list of supernatural mysteries to solve, it’s easy to imagine a world in which Dead Boy Detectives runs for multiple seasons while amassing a loyal following of its own. When you strip the show down to its bare bones, it resembles some of pop culture’s best and most successful products, with elements of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the aforementioned Supernatural, and even Nancy Drew. So the fact fans were left with just a single, eight-episode adventure—one that ends on a cliffhanger after a devastating loss, no less—is frustrating, to say the least. And yet, it’s not entirely surprising either.
There was a period after the end of Game of Thrones when every network and streaming service rushed to capitalize on the masses’ newfound interest in fantasy. But that wave soon crested, with most shows fizzling as the world pivoted. Mythology-heavy series require commitment, both from the creator (i.e., the studio) and the viewer. As the world of streaming contracts following an extended period of unchecked growth, and with the disappearance of networks like The CW that once offered homes to outside-the-box shows, niche series like Dead Boy Detective are only going to continue to face an uphill battle.
No matter how accessible on paper, genre shows are harder to sell to the masses than more traditional dramas, especially in the streaming age when entire seasons are released at once for the purpose of binge-watching. This means shows enter the cultural zeitgeist for a few short weeks before disappearing just as quickly (see also: Prime Video’s bonkers but wonderful historical fantasy My Lady Jane, which was also canceled after one season). Those that are successful in this model, like Stranger Things and Wednesday, are the exception, and they tend to catch on not through marketing or because they’re inherently better, but by word of mouth or because they have a built-in audience as existing intellectual property. The Sandman, despite its loyal following, isn’t one of Netflix’s most successful titles, and it’s not the type of series casual subscribers are going to watch because it’s on their home screen. So it stands to reason Dead Boy Detectives, which is not clearly related to the show and was not marketed that well (if at all), was never going to break through either. But this also highlights a long-standing issue concerning streaming: the murkiness of what goes into renewing or canceling a program.
Critical success has never been the sole barometer for renewal (unless, of course, the show in question is Crazy Ex-Girlfriend). And in the case of Netflix, if a show isn’t growing its worldwide subscriber base, it seemingly doesn’t matter if a program is beloved. The shocking cancellation of The Baby-Sitters Club, an acclaimed, award-winning coming-of-age series that ran for two seasons, gave us a rare glimpse behind the curtain in 2022, one that doesn’t inspire much confidence in Netflix’s opinion on the inherent worthiness of art. As we’ve gotten further and further away from the early days of streaming, this has only gotten worse as more and more worthwhile shows are cut down in their prime.
This isn’t a new phenomenon, of course. Networks have always canceled underperforming shows with little consideration for fandom, often after just a few episodes have aired. But the difference between traditional television models and streaming is that shows produced and canceled under the traditional model quickly disappeared, both literally and from our collective conscience. In the world of streaming, entire seasons are produced before release, and they live on indefinitely on their respective platforms, yet they are given just a month or two to find an audience that meets a vague threshold defined by shadow math and an algorithm no one fully understands.
Canceling a show after a single season happens so often—or at the very least is much more visible than it used to be—that some viewers refuse to watch a show until it’s been renewed or has completed its story. This is counterintuitive and only contributes to more cancellations, but this is also the culture Netflix and other streaming platforms have cultivated in the race to produce more and more content in a crowded television landscape. With network television once again flourishing, and with more traditional shows like Matlock and High Potential inspiring loyal followings (and winning awards!), one has to wonder if a show like Dead Boy Detectives, with its infectious sense of humor and intriguing cases of the week, would have been better suited for a weekly release on a regular network or via a streaming service willing to experiment with different rollouts (The Pitt caught on for a reason). Unfortunately, we’ll never know.
The loss of a show like Dead Boy Detectives, one that was as proudly queer as it was goofy and weird, is a blow to originality and a painful loss for LGBTQ+ representation. The door has been closed on one of the most unique and interesting universes pop culture has to offer, and it’s painful to see in a world overrun with lazy reboots and tired revivals. And yet, the sexual abuse allegations against Neil Gaiman, who created the characters at the center of the show and is thus a credited executive producer (meaning he makes money from its success even though he had little to do with it creatively), also make it difficult to justify the show’s ongoing existence today. In situations such as these, we must ask: Is it possible to separate art from artist? Does on-screen representation and support for the LGBTQ+ community at a time of extreme turmoil demand that we try to do more? Are the inherent positives enough to counteract, or at least ease, some of the damage and pain that has been caused? I can’t make that call. No one person can make the decision for everyone. As consumers of art, we must personally decide what we are willing to accept, what we are not, and act accordingly. But this simple truth remains regardless: For one single joyous season, Dead Boy Detectives was a beacon of hope in a world that gets uglier every day, and for that reason at least, it’s a shame this is all we got.
Kaitlin Thomas is an entertainment journalist and TV critic. Her work has appeared in TV Guide, Salon, and Gold Derby, among other places. You can find her tweets about TV, sports, and Walton Goggins@thekaitling.
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