YOU season 2: Did Lifetime make a mistake handing it to Netflix?
The past several weeks, a rather-fascinating phenomenon has occurred at Netflix: YOU has turned into a rather-enormous hit for them!
Netflix at this point is rather used to have breakout original shows, and the Penn Badgley thriller is no exception to that rule. Per some data released by the company today, 40 million households have viewed at least 70% of one episode of the show. It’s an impressive number for the series, and we think that the audience for it may only continue to spread over time.
Yet, here’s the twist: YOU was not originally supposed to be a Netflix original. The first season aired on Lifetime last year, but it couldn’t get a whole lot of traction there. It’s one of the reasons why the second season was moved to Netflix, making it the second Lifetime original series after UnREAL to find itself moved to a different spot on the air.
The question that you are left wondering here is simply this — did Lifetime make a mistake in canceling this show when they did?
Ratings-wise, we do understand the choice — if this wasn’t performing anywhere near as well as they were hoping it would leading up to it, it makes a certain degree of sense that they would want to move on. They had no idea that it would take off on Netflix like it has. Yet, at this point we wonder more about possible regret, given that some of these viewers who are discovering YOU now could’ve come to Lifetime to watch a second season.
Is it possible that some of the viewers who are watching YOU on Netflix would’ve just kept watching it there for season 2? Sure, but the whole idea of this show is to get viewers hooked so that they want to watch a little bit more of it down the line. Some of those viewers could’ve transferred over, but at this point the sad reality is that, one way or another, we’re never going to get a chance to know. This is just something that’s going to be out there in the ether and, one way or another, will forever remain a ratings mystery.
Still, good on Netflix for being smart enough to make a move on this show when they did. There are several reasons at this point why they’ve come to revolutionize the television industry as we know it.
Related News – Be sure to get some other news regarding You moving forward, including some additional scoop on what lies ahead
What do you think about some of the data when it comes to YOU and some other series? Be sure to share right now in the attached comments! We’ll have more on this series as it starts to come out. (Photo: Netflix)