It’s been half of a decade since “The Society” captivated Netflix viewers during its short life as a streaming series. These viewers became enraptured by a rag-tag group of teens that started their own civilization after landing in an identical version of their town but devoid of the rest of its residents, including their parents.
The series, which premiered in May 2019, was renewed two months later and set to go into production in March 2020. The streamer promised to answer burning questions: Who’s the father of Becca’s baby? How was Charlie the dog able to travel between settlements? But COVID-19 had other plans, making it difficult for the ensemble to reassemble for Season 2; the show was canceled in August 2020.
“This wasn’t a normal cancellation. This wasn’t about not having the audience or we didn’t believe in it anymore. There was a global crisis that changed all of our lives in the one year we were able to make it,” says creator Christopher Keyser.
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Keyser, who also co-created “Party of Five” and served as showrunner of “Julia” on Max, says that “The Society” is still the show he gets asked about in every interview. And it’s still on his mind as much as it is for the fans carrying “Save ‘The Society’” torches on social media.
“It really feels like this thing that we loved and were ready for was taken away more than anything I’ve ever done. That’s true for the writers and Marc Webb, with whom I made the show. There’s a sense that it stopped in mid-animation, but we knew a lot of what was going to happen on the other side,” he says. “There’s also the emotional thing going on with the audience reaching out to us and consistently saying, ‘Tell me what happened. When is it coming back?’ It was particularly poignant for us since we were closer than I think most shows get to being ready to go again.”
Keyser and his creative partners came close to releasing a graphic novel that would encapsulate Season 2 storylines but the publisher went out of business. The writing crew is still figuring out how to continue the story in a new way.
“I have consistent conversations with a bunch of the writers and Marc Webb about how we might bring this back in some way. We don’t have an answer yet, and I wouldn’t count on it, but I don’t do that with every show that gets canceled,” Keyser says. “The audience still wants to talk about it. They are still moved by it and want answers to the questions and then new questions are posed. I just don’t know whether the world is going to work in a way that aligns for us, but we’ll keep trying for a while because it’s gotten under my skin as well.”
Since the team is still looking for ways to continue the story, Keyser wouldn’t spoil anything for us, but he did want to extend his gratitude to everyone who has kept “The Society” in
their hearts.
“Thank you for not letting the show go,” he says. “Things only live for a certain amount of time, and that’s just as long as people remember them. If this gets remembered, there’s not much else that people who make something for an audience can ask for.”
