And just like that, Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil film series re-secures its title as the most improbably successful adaptation of the long-running Capcom horror franchise. Which is to say: Deadline reports this week that Netflix has canceled its own Resident Evil TV show after just a single season on the air, tearing the show apart like some poor hapless human dangling in front of Zeroes. (That’s what they call zombies in this one; turns out we are saying the zed word!)
Developed and showrun by Andrew Dabb, the Resident Evil show was a damn strange thing: An attempt to operate as a sort of alternate sequel to the game series, and a post-apocalyptic survival show, and a weird meditation about sisterhood and family, and probably a bunch of other things we might have missed. It took some very big, goofy swings with both its plotting and its dialogue, is what we’re saying, with some more successful than others. (If you’ve got Lance Reddick in your cast, why wouldn’t you have him play four different characters, right?)
Despite debuting in a strong position on Netflix’s internal charts (arriving only behind a resurgent Stranger Things), the series didn’t build up that word-of-mouth momentum the streamer generally likes to see; indeed, its ratings appear to have dropped off a cliff around the third or so week after its July release, disappearing into that half-remembered purgatory for streaming shows that just didn’t catch fire in the general consciousness. (Six months from now, we’re pretty sure we’ll be struggling to remember if a Resident Evil show was ever made at all.)
In addition to Reddick, the series starred Ella Balinski and Tamara Smart, playing adult and teenaged versions, respectively, of its Zero-battling hero, Jade Wesker.