1899 cancelled: has Netflix series been scrapped, what’s been said about season 2, and ending explained

1899 landed on Netflix in November last year and was watched by millions of viewers across the world in the first weeks of its release. The dark mystery series had plenty of twists in store and season one ended on a major cliffhanger.

This makes it all the more disappointing that the show has reportedly been cancelled just as it’s got started, meaning that fans will likely not see the mystery resolved. The series showrunners have expressed disappointment at the news as they had planned to make a further two seasons.

Has 1899 been cancelled?

Unfortunately for fans of the fantasy series, 1899 has been cancelled after just one season. The news comes less than two months after Brazilian comic book writer Mary Cagnin claimed that 1899 was plagiarised from a work she published in 2016.

1899 reached the number two position in Netflix’s Top 10 TV English titles within three days of its release on the site. After two weeks the show had clocked more than 160 million hours of streaming.

The show came from Dark creators Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese - both shows were German-language sci-fi thriller features. Dark became the most popular German-language show on the site after its release and ran for three seasons, with the second season being greenlit the same month that the show premiered.

Fans expected 1899 enjoy a similar run but the series came to an abrupt end after just eight episodes were released. Showrunner bo Odar confirmed that the show has been cancelled on a post on her Instagram page - she wrote: "With a heavy heart we have to tell you that 1899 will not be renewed. We would have loved to finish this incredible journey with a 2nd and 3rd season as we did with Dark.

“But sometimes things don’t turn out the way you planned. That’s life. We know this will disappoint millions of fans out there. But we want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts that you were a part of this wonderful adventure. We love you. Never forget."

This means that the series will not see a second season unless the powers that be at Netflix change their minds, or if the show is picked up by another network. Gritty crime drama Top Boy was dropped by Channel 4 in 2014 but picked up by Netflix five years later - and has so far run for a further two seasons.

How did 1899 end?

1899 followed a group of multinational immigrants travelling on the steamship Kerberos from Europe to America. During their voyage they come across the sister ship Prometheus, adrift in the Atlantic, and find disturbing riddles on board.

At the end of the first season, the passengers learn that their experience has taken place inside a simulation, and they are actually in the year 2099. The passengers who died on the Kerberos did not die in reality and were plugged into the simulation.

Evidently, the ending was leading up to major events in a second season which would have seen the passengers deal with their new reality. The showrunners had also teased a potential crossover with Dark in future episodes but, as the show has been cancelled, we’ll likely never know how the series was supposed to end.