Are Fan-Led TV Renewal Campaigns All for Nothing?

If you have been on the Internet anytime in the past decade or more, you have likely experienced a #Save campaign. From successful efforts like #SaveLucifer to more recent pushes like #SaveShadowAndBone, fans have been fighting for their favorite series to be rescued from the throes of cancellation for years. But as the streaming belts have tightened and the sheer amount of cancellations has grown seemingly exponentially, the amount of shows that actually get revived has dwindled to virtually none. And yet, these fan renewal campaigns only continue to get more expensive, more elaborate, and more inescapable—but is all this effort for nothing? At this point, it seems like the answer is a resounding yes. 

In 2018, FOX canceled Brooklyn Nine-Nine. The comedy series, which was from creators Mike Shur and Dan Goor, followed the antics and hijinks of the officers of New York’s 99th precinct and starred a fan-favorite cast led by Andy Samberg. The cancellation, which was blamed on declining viewership and FOX’s decision to make more room for sports broadcasting, sparked instant outrage online, and thus #RenewB99 was born. After a short 31 hours of digital crusading and an outpouring of love from both fans and celebrities alike, the series would be revived and then re-homed to NBC, where Shur’s previous work thrived. 

Then, just a few weeks later, FOX canceled Lucifer, their DC Comics consultant procedural about the literal devil helping an LAPD detective solve cases through his ability to know others’ desires. The cancellation, which was again blamed on declining viewership and FOX’s decision to make more room for sports broadcasting, similarly irked fans and led to #SaveLucifer. This one took a little longer than mere hours, but a month later, Lucifer was saved by Netflix. In both cases, these campaigns dominated Twitter (X), each maintaining the #1 trending topic for hours or days on end, with generally unavoidable conversation spanning across all corners of the Internet. 

But unlike the attitude that permeates most renewal campaigns today, the revival of these shows wasn’t really about the amount of tweets generated or the number of billboards present in major cities, it was about the explosion of passion that reached beyond just a single fandom and created a movement that naturally continued to build until it was unavoidable—all mixed with a fair amount of corporate synergy, of course.

You see, none of these renewals are random good deeds enacted by these networks, they’re strategic moves and only happen when the right pieces lock into place. For example, Manifest was canceled in 2021 at NBC. #SaveManifest was born, and Netflix was the one to the rescue. However, Manifest’s renewal at Netflix was not a passionate message from Netflix to NBC to just let good shows thrive, dammit! (Trust me, they smother their own good shows all the time.) No, the series was massively successful in syndication on the platform, and Netflix simply capitalized on that success. In fact, Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s return to NBC was a case of corporate serendipity, bringing the series to the network where many believe it should have aired from the jump. And Netflix, who had just lost the rights to its hard-hitting Marvel properties in 2017, saw an opportunity in Lucifer’s 2018 cancellation as well; a fresh comic book property with a built-in fanbase was just what they needed after losing Daredevil and crew. When considering the other factors at play within these three landmark renewals, it’s clear that fan push isn’t the only aspect streamers or networks consider when bringing a canceled series into the fold. 

The stars have to align in extremely specific and convenient ways, and for series like A League of Their Own, Station 19, Our Flag Means Death, and so many more, those stars might never align the way fans desperately wish they would. The minute after each of these cancellations was announced, fans moved into action. #Save campaigns immediately began to circulate on Twitter, and fans attempted to militaristically organize themselves to get their show back on the air. They each did everything right, but in this streaming economy, who would want to revive a show someone else cast aside? 

It’s been highly detailed over the past five years just how much money and work has been put into the various streaming platforms that have cropped up: Max, Paramount+, Apple TV+, Peacock, Disney+, and the list goes on. Each of these platforms, and their larger parent companies, have been digging into their back-stock of Intellectual Property, each attempting to make the most of what they already have in-house. Thus, Star Trek rules at Paramount+, Disney+ has gone full tilt into Star Wars and Marvel television, Max rebooted Pretty Little Liars and has taken advantage of their DC stockpile, and Peacock debuted a Ted prequel. With so much IP to attempt to take advantage of (while trying to save as much money as possible—to the extreme at Max), who has time to even think about taking over a series that someone else deemed “undesirable?” With so much money invested into these streaming services, a practice that once seemed like the best way to one-up your competition and garner goodwill has all but disappeared in an effort to simply keep these platforms afloat.

Of course, there is a pattern emerging for which programs are deemed undesirable, as the common denominator between Our Flag Means Death, Warrior Nun, A League of Their Own, and so many more are its non-straight, non-white leads. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen time and time again, the first shows and creatives to be on the chopping block are the diverse, boundary-pushing ones. The tightening of the purse strings around the streaming industry leaves these shows more vulnerable to cancellation, as they’re not seen as universal enough to invest in, while also making them less likely to get “saved” by another streaming service than their straighter, whiter peers—if that were really even an option anymore. 

As the years have gone by, #Save campaigns have become more and more focused on crowd-funding, seeking funds to put up billboards (oftentimes in Times Square) or fly planes over corporate headquarters with messages for studio executives. The most recent campaign, called “Hoist the Ads” by those within the fandom for the canceled Max comedy Our Flag Means Death, raised over $20,000 to “fund billboards, car and bus ads, canvassing efforts, and more.” (It blew past its goal of $10,000, and the campaign page states that any funds gathered beyond the goal will go towards fandom-related charities.) And while it remains to be seen if these efforts will save Our Flag Means Death, it’s more likely that all of this money will have once again gone to waste.

Fans of Legends of Tomorrow crowdfunded in 2022 to fly a plane over Warner Bros. Studios in an effort to save the series; the show remains canceled. The Wilds fans raised over $4,000 to put up a billboard in Santa Monica for four weeks in an effort to save the series; the show remains canceled. The same sad tale has played out time and time again, where fans feel the need to invest not only their time but their hard-earned money to save shows that, in most cases, their parent networks or streamers never really gave a proper chance. It’s emblematic of our broken streaming system, where streamers like Max expect to drop a show, do little to no promotion for it, rely on fans to cause a surge of word-of-mouth-advertising, and then when the numbers don’t roll in, these shows get canceled. And the cycle begins anew, but this time, with fans dumping what should have been the streamer’s promotional budget into efforts to revive a corpse that has long-since gone cold. 

These fan campaigns and the exorbitant amount of time and money that fans pour into saving these shows has already led to blatant exploitation, even beyond the now-common belief that fanbases should be the sole party doing any promotion for their beloved series. In 2022, Netflix canceled Warrior Nun after two seasons. The cancellation sparked the same outrage once again, resulting in billboards, an online inescapability—the works. After a grueling six-month campaign effort from the fandom, it seemed that the heavens had opened and all that tweeting and fundraising had worked: series creator Simon Barry tweeted that “Warrior Nun will return,” all thanks to fans’ “combined voices, passion and amazing efforts.” In August, it was announced that the series would be returning as a feature film trilogy, but in the midst of both the writers’ and actors’ strikes, it was left unknown as to who would be returning for the project; the excitement was still palpable from the fandom. But now, more than a calendar year after the cancellation of the series, it’s become clear that the Warrior Nun fans knew and loved will not actually be returning in any way, shape, or form. Barry has since announced that he is not involved in the film trilogy, and producer Amy Berg has also stated that she was never contacted about a continuation and believes no one from the original series is involved. 

The latest news to come out about the film trilogy came from comic creator Ben Dunn, whose work loosely inspired the Netflix series, asking fans to participate in a contest to redesign the iconic halo for the upcoming films, with the prize being an illustration drawn by Dunn. Despite ending on October 31st, it seems no winner has been announced, and the Warrior Nun Saved website has yet to be updated with further information. But it seems truly safe to say that Warrior Nun fans, despite their initial excitement, should not expect to actually see the characters they knew and loved ever again. It’s clear that there was no network or streamer that would continue the show, so instead, the original comic creator and a few producers from the project are attempting to funnel that fan affection into something completely different, exploiting fans’ passion and excitement to revive an out-of-date comic and bring free press to a project that will likely be a shadow of the Netflix series, if it even resembles it at all. 

Warrior Nun is just the first example of a fandom’s efforts being exploited by those that wish to take advantage of creative and passionate people, with no intention of actually bringing back the story they have worked so hard to see on screen again, and it certainly won’t be the last. While the thousands of dollars that are poured into billboards, flyover planes, and the many creative ways fans have come up with to express their displeasure at cancellations may not mean anything to executives who refuse to un-cancel or save these shows, they clearly see just how much people are willing to spend on and invest in projects that they care about, and we’ve only just begun to see the consequences of overzealous fandom.  

More than anything, the commonality of renewal campaigns (seriously, think about how many hashtags you’ve seen for canceled shows in the past two months alone—I can’t count them all on one hand) has led to nothing more than apathy, from all sides. Streaming service social media managers have gotten sick of the constant spamming from the latest renewal campaign (Hulu’s main account posted in 2021, likely after being inundated by renewal campaigns for a show no one remembers: “no—i won’t save your show, periodt.”), casual viewers have gotten sick of seeing the spamming below posts that have nothing to do with the canceled show, and beyond seeing how they can exploit fans further, studio executives simply block out the noise. 

Losing a show you love is hard. It hurts, and I understand your pain and frustration—I’ve been there more times than I can count. But this vicious cycle of debuts and cancellations and campaigns has spiraled out of control, and the only way to put an end to this practice is for networks and streamers to properly invest in the shows they put out. Meanwhile, fans need to understand that, as unfortunate as it is, no amount of money, posts, or noise can save every show, and that frequent cancellations are an unfortunate side effect of our oversaturated streaming climate. There has to be some way to meet in the middle here, for fans to rest assured that their show has been invested in and for streamers to regain the trust of its audience, but until then, we’re all spiraling towards mutually-assured destruction, distrust, and exploitation as our new TV normal. 

Anna Govert is the TV Editor of Paste Magazine. For any and all thoughts about TV, film, and her unshakable love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you can follow her @annagovert.

For all the latest TV news, reviews, lists and features, follow @Paste_TV.