Netflix has canceled a beloved TV show after one season. The show’s creator, Mattson Tomlin, recently addressed the disappointing news.
Why did Netflix cancel Terminator Zero?
Terminator Zero has been canceled after one season. Set in the Terminator universe, the anime series continued the battle between humanity and the artificial intelligence network known as Skynet. Terminator Zero is based on the Terminator franchise created by James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd.
Netflix never announced the cancellation publicly. Tomlin, who created Terminator Zero for Netflix, confirmed the series had been canceled in an X post. When asked for a reason, Tomlin said it came down to viewership.
“It was cancelled,” Tomlin wrote on X. “The critical and audience reception to it was tremendous, but at the end of the day not nearly enough people watched it. I would’ve loved to deliver on the Future War I had planned in season’s 2 and 3, but I’m also very happy with how it feels contained as is.”
“Caught between the future and this past is a soldier sent back in time to change the fate of humanity. She arrives in 1997 to protect a scientist named Malcolm Lee who works to launch a new AI system designed to compete with Skynet’s impending attack on humanity,” the Netflix synopsis reads. “As Malcolm navigates the moral complexities of his creation, he is hunted by an unrelenting assassin from the future, which forever alters the fate of his three children.”
Tomlin wrote the scripts in English, which were later translated into Japanese. Terminator Zero featured two voice casts: one in Japanese and one in English.
The English-dubbed cast included Timothy Olyphant as The Terminator, Rosario Dawson as Kokoro, André Holland as Malcolm Lee, Sonoya Mizuno as Eiko, and Ann Dowd as The Prophet.
The eight-episode series premiered on Netflix in August 2024 to positive acclaim. Despite Tomlin’s plans for multiple seasons, Terminator Zero will not continue.
