"Why I am not surprised Netflix’s The Boroughs has been cancelled after just one season"
Netflix’s The Boroughs was dubbed ‘Stranger Things with seniors’ but I was not convinced by it.
According to reports, Netflix’s The Boroughs has been cancelled after just one season. The show was created by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews and produced by The Duffer Brothers who were behind Stranger Things.
In September 2024 the six-lead cast for Netflix’s The Boroughs was revealed as Alfred Molina, Geena Davis, Alfre Woodard, Denis O’Hare, Clarke Peters, and Bill Pullman. For those who haven’t watched the series, Netflix describes it as “In a seemingly perfect retirement community; a crew of unlikely heroes must stop an otherworldly threat from stealing the one thing they don’t have time.”
In an interview with Netflix’s The Tudum, Jeffrey Addiss said: “The fact that they are older is not a joke. It is part of why they are our heroes,” and also revealed that “When we meet them, their lives are already pretty full. And then they go on this adventure that changes them.”
Ross Duffer said: “So many of the actors of this age, even legends, aren’t given an opportunity to shine like action heroes. They’re often cast as grandparents.”
He also revealed that “To see them all interact together — it was definitely a pinch me moment when we went to that first table read, because these are all legends and they’re still at the top of their game, and they just love being there. You just saw the joy.”
Having watched some episodes of Stranger Things, I thought that Netflix’s The Boroughs might appeal to me. However, soon after starting to watch it, I realised I was wrong.
I thought it was an interesting concept to focus on a retirement community and I thought there were some excellent actors in the cast such as Alfred Molina and Geena Davis, but as soon as Bill Pullman’s character Jack is killed off in the first episode by an alien-like creature, I thought it was too far-fetched and not for me.
It would seem that some Reddit users are in agreement with me and one wrote: “Not too surprised. I initially quite liked it but thought it really ran out of steam and stretched the concept way too thin.
“It really felt like the story would have been better as a 2 hour film. I can't really see there was much meat left on the bone for another season. The lore felt extremely shallow.”
Another said: “I really really wanted to like it. It was so bad,” whilst somebody else wrote:
“I thought it was cynically derivative and played out as though someone was just rolling dice every 5 minutes. The cast deserved much much better.”
However, there were some Reddit users who shared positive thoughts about the series and one fan wrote: “Bound to happen, because I liked it,” whilst somebody else wrote: “Noooooooo!!!! I’ll watch anything with Alfred Molina! So nice to have him for 10 episodes!”