Six years on from its second season, Mindhunter fans are still reeling from the cancellation of this Netflix masterpiece, due to apparent budgetary restrictions. The streaming giant attempted to place stricter limits on the cost of the series, but co-director and supervising producer David Fincher wasn’t willing to cut down on what he saw as some of its essential components.
In fact, Mindhunter is just one example of a more general problem plaguing the predominant streaming model in the TV industry. Netflix’s high-profile cancellations are becoming more and more frequent, with some of the platform’s biggest new releases of 2024 and 2025 already axed. It isn’t just Netflix, either – they just happen to be the most visible culprit.
In any case, since 2019 we’ve been waiting for a follow-up to Mindhunter’s season 2 ending, which teased further developments in a subplot about Wichita’s notorious BTK killer. This subplot had been built up gradually from the very first episode of the show, and it felt like a betrayal of fans when it was left hanging without a resolution.
There’s Something Wrong With Streaming If Mindhunter Can’t Get A Third Season
With a 97% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, alongside a 95% audience approval rating, Mindhunter is widely regarded as one of the greatest things that Netflix has ever produced. So the idea that this series could be canceled after just two seasons, with its most important storyline left suspended in midair, suggests that there’s something seriously wrong with streaming.
In June 2025, actor Holt McCallany revealed that there are talks around three Mindhunter movies currently ongoing. But even this positive update probably isn’t the one that most fans are looking for. The show should be continued from where it left off, as a brooding psychological thriller series, rather than as three standalone feature films.
The Streaming Model Has Made It Difficult For Experimental Shows To Thrive
However, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for any TV show to get renewed for additional seasons by the major streaming networks. Netflix canceled the most shows out of any streamer in 2024, but it was far from alone in increasing its cancellation rate last year.
The speculative investments in high-risk experimentation which defined the early years of streaming have definitively come to an end. Netflix is no longer an up-and-coming young game-changer with money to burn. Now it is the game. The world’s most subscribed-to streaming platform has laid the blueprint for everyone else to follow.
Everyone else means, first and foremost, three of the world’s largest multimedia conglomerates, Amazon, Apple and Disney, who’ve now consolidated their positions in the streaming markets, and pose a major threat to Netflix’s competitive edge. At the same time, those who funded the rise of streaming are now demanding a return on their investment.
These are the fundamental reasons why we’re now seeing the creative experimentation which characterized streaming’s ascent to television’s top table turning into its opposite. A few gigantic corporate monoliths have monopolized the industry, and are primarily concerned with generating profits from their content, rather than art and entertainment.
In this climate, it’s unlikely that we’ll see Mindhunter season 3 on Netflix anytime soon, given that each episode of the show was reportedly costing an eye-watering $20 million to make (via Comic Book Resources). Unfortunately, no streaming behemoth would find this outlay a worthwhile investment, particularly for a show which has never topped any Netflix chart.
Every Dollar Put Into Mindhunter Was Worth It
The artistic merits of Mindhunter may not be of concern to those holding the purse strings at Netflix. Yet, they’re the reason why the millions of viewers and hundreds of critics are such ardent and vocal supporters of the show.
If its reported cost per episode is true, that would make it the most expensive original series in Netflix history. But such a massive outlay is apparent in every single aspect of this incomparably innovative police-procedural drama. It was an investment in art genuinely worthy of the word great, which saw a productive return on every dollar.
The return might not be reflected in raw numbers, but history will account for the real impact of Mindhunter, in terms of its wider legacy and influence on the future of screen drama. Like the auteuristic big-screen masterpieces of New Hollywood, it didn’t come cheap, but the world would be worse off without it.
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- founded
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January 16, 2007
- first original series
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Lilyhammer
Netflix is a global streaming service offering on-demand access to movies, TV shows, documentaries, and original content. Founded in 1997 as a DVD rental service, it transitioned to streaming in 2007 and now operates in over 190 countries.
