The fans have spoken, and Netflix’s recently-canceled series Sense8 is coming back next year for a two-hour final episode.
Netflix and show co-creator Lana Wachowski said on Thursday that fan clamour inspired the show’s return. Netflix had announced earlier this month that Sense8 was not renewed for a third season, leading to an “outpouring of love and grief ... so intense that I often found myself unable to open my own email,” Wachowski said. “I confess I fell into a fairly serious depression”.
The series tracked eight mentally-linked characters on four continents, addressing issues of homophobia, transphobia, poverty, religious and class tensions, and race.
It received critical acclaim for its high production values and technical trickery, used in scenes where linked characters step in and out of each others roles – a feature that was also used, to the internet’s delight, in two lengthy astral projection group sex scenes.
It was cancelled less than a month after the release of season two, which ended in a cliffhanger.
Netflix said the show did not attract a large enough audience to justify the $9m per episode cost of filming across nine countries, but the decision caused outrage among LGBTI viewers who took the cancellation of a show with a diversity of LGBTI characters, during the first week of pride month, as an affront.
Day 1 of Pride month - Sense8 cancelled.
— Sense8 Is Back (@HouseOfSense8) June 30, 2017
*We fought an entire month for our cluster*
End of Pride month - Sense8 comes back.#Sense8isBack pic.twitter.com/9ifJ3le1Rv
Wachowski said in a statement that the “passionate letters, the petitions, the collective voice that rose up like the fist of Sun to fight for this show” ultimately helped resurrect it: “Your love has brought Sense8 back to life. (I could kiss every single one of you!),” she said.
Death doesn't let you say goodbye. 2 hour finale episode in the works. Tell your cluster. pic.twitter.com/GHZgGuHwS0
— Sense8 (@sense8) June 29, 2017
A Netflix representative confirmed the Facebook post and released a statement on Thursday saying, “We decided to give Sense8 fans the ending they totally deserve.”
