With the cancellation and subsequent removal of Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies from Paramount+ after only one season comes a question of trust and preservation for filmmakers and viewers.
The musical series, which was a prequel to the 1978 film Grease, released on April 6 this year. It was met with varying success, as many critics, such as The Hollywood Reporter, labelled it endearing but “disappointingly forgettable”. Its finale debuted on June 1 and its cancellation followed swiftly after. A mere month later, on June 30, the show was removed.
Creator Annabel Oakes said on Instagram following the news: “In a particularly brutal move, it is also being removed from Paramount Plus next and unless it finds a new home you will no longer be able to watch it anywhere. The cast, my creative partners, and I are all devastated at the complete erasure of our show.”
The streaming service has also opted to remove Star Trek: Prodigy, despite the show being given the go-ahead for a season two only recently, as well as Tell Me A Story, Queen of the Universe, and a handful of others. Disney took a similar tactic in May when it said it would be pulling some of its content from the streaming service it owns and operates. The move was met with significant pushback from the public, with many worried about where they will be able to consume some of their favourite shows.
As part of a “strategic shift” for the Walt Disney Company, it’s rethinking the way it plans to boost business. According to The Independent, Disney+lost around four million subscribers in the first three months of this year alone. This resulted in the news that Disney would be “removing certain content from [its] streaming platforms”, which was revealed on an earnings call with analysts earlier this month. The company is looking at a writedown of $1.5 billion to $1.8 billion after removing the already-selected content, says Deadline.
Over 70 titles were removed, which included Y: The Last Man, The World According to Jeff Goldblum, Black Beauty, Cheaper by the Dozen (2022), Willow (2022), The Right Stuff, Diary of a Future President, Artemis Fowl, Flora & Ulysses and many more.
In more ways than one, this could spell the end of television creators’ and audiences’ trust in these streaming services.
Why is it problematic?
With the decision made to go through with this comes a heavy price to pay. None of the series named above were released in physical form, meaning they were only available on Disney+and Paramount+. The removal of media sparks the question: where will viewers be able to access these shows? Unfortunately, the answer isn’t surprising—illegal streaming sites and other content providers, such as YouTube. This is unless other buyers emerge to take on the extra content.
By doing this, these streaming services are effectively encouraging people to access these illegal sites in order to watch their shows. By chucking these series away, the company is neglecting ownership of them and accepting it will no longer make money from them. The opinion these companies could potentially hold is that if they don’t have it, no one should have it.
Every show and film takes time. They require the efforts of a full crew of writers, actors, filmmakers and editors, the productions of which often span anything from months to years. To throw all of that hard work away could be seen as almost villainous, especially if it won’t be accessible anywhere else. The relationship between the filmmakers who created these shows and the company comes into question, as well as the kind of chaos it could possibly cause in the future. Not only have Disney and Paramount harmed the relationship with their viewers but also the people who are creating and providing this content to them. It would be understandable for the level of trust between them to diminish quickly. The effects of this are damaging. What we could see is filmmakers being discouraged in the future and less quality content emerging from these platforms.
What is noticeable is most of the shows that are being taken off were only created and distributed recently because they were all created by Disney or Paramount+ for their dedicated streaming platforms. However, the problem is more far-reaching than many may realise.
Finding an audience
It’s quite common for TV shows not to be financially successful, especially immediately. This is the case with Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, which only had a month to find its audience, and it didn’t manage to achieve big numbers for Paramount+. It feels as though television executives have forgotten it usually takes a series two seasons at least for a buzz to be created. If a show isn’t given this chance and it’s buried on a streaming platform with little to no marketing it will take time for people to come across the series. In fact, when it was first reported that Pink Ladies was to be removed its audience numbers were briefly bolstered.
We are all familiar with the expression “give it a chance, it takes a while to get going”. But what if it isn’t given that chance and cut off before it can reach its potential and intended audience? The way television and streaming is heading is bleak, especially if users are expected to keep on top of every new show as soon as it comes out.
In the past, if a TV show was cancelled you would still often find the show was released physically on DVD or Blu-ray, in order to generate sales on the lacklustre show. This is the case with Joss Whedon’s Firefly, a sci-fi western show which, due to the network airing the episodes out of order, was cancelled before its first season was complete. Nevertheless, Firefly was released on DVD and spawned a massive cult following with many fans spreading the show to their friends and family.
The backlash of the cancellation of the show was so massive, and the support and adoration of the cast and crew was so colossal, that they achieved the impossible. Firefly had a sequel in the form of a film—Serenity (2005). Although not a financial success, the film was met with critical acclaim and has helped Firefly become a vast media empire of books, comics and board games.
All of this came from simply releasing a quality show which was poorly managed by its network on DVD. How many examples like this will we miss in the days of streaming services completely culling shows?
Preservation
There needs to be a space for art preservation, and it’s looking less and less like streaming services may be the answer. If streaming platforms will remove content as easily as has been demonstrated, there is little to stop them. However, Pink Ladies fans have taken action and created a petition, which has already reached over 40,000 signatures. It states that the show has diverse casts and sapphic plots and leads, which is valuable in today’s world, as viewers see more and more of themselves on screen, with shows like these leading the way. This diversity is ultimately very important to many people and shouldn’t be overlooked and so the petition wishes for the rights to be transferred to another platform and ensure its continuation.
If the problem can’t be addressed at its core, then something else must be done. Many people still buy hard copies of films and shows, namely DVDs and Blu-rays. Though it has now gone out of fashion, we could see a return to form for physical media as a response to people losing their patience with these digital platforms. Unfortunately for Pink Ladies, it hasn’t been and there are no plans to release it physically—thus showing us the danger of making content purely for a streaming service.
Meanwhile, zombie classic 28 Days Later has been completely wiped from streaming services, for no discernible reason, and its only copies are in the forms of DVDs and Blu-rays. This is a standing testament to how important and relevant physical media remains today. It could be the only way we can preserve the film and television we love.
Only time will tell how damaging these rash decisions from streaming platforms will be for viewers and filmmakers alike. Unless there is a max exodus by users, it’s likely the same cycle will continue and films and television series will continue to be cut and bounced around these services. Though, as Disney says, there will be a shift in content and a focus on putting quality over quantity. Axing well-made films and shows that a cast and crew have put hundreds of hours of the life into making won’t win your audiences over.
Words by Gemma Nettle
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