Netflix won't air fantasy show The Grimm Reality despite finishing filming

Netflix has a reputation for canceling shows too soon: Sense8...The OA...The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance...we could keep that list goint for a while. According to Deadline, they're now innovating by canceling a new series — The Grimm Reality from Wiedemann & Berg, the production company behind Dark — before it ever reaches us.

Although plot details are scarce, The Grimm Reality was reportedly going to adapt Brothers Grimm stories from the 18th and 19th centuries but rework them for a modern urban setting. So, I dunno, Hansel and Gretel, but the witch lives in a brownstone and bakes a lot. The show was created by Till Kleinert and Erol Yesilkaya. Actors included Hyuan Wanner, Patrick Isermeyer, Eidin Jalali and Dennis Schuermann. As you can probably tell from the names, this would have been a German-language production, much like Netflix's popular sci-fi thriller series Dark.

Obviously we can't know if The Grimm Reality would have been a huge success had Netflix allowed it to cross the finish line. This isn't a situation where they canceled a beloved show that already had fans clamorbing for more. But the idea of filming a show or movie and then pulling the plug before audiences can see anything is becoming more common, and it's making people uncofortable. Mainly it's been Warner Bros. Discovery pioneering this technique with movies like Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme, but clearly other studios are opposed to picking it up.

It must be especially hard for the cast and crew of these projects to work on them only for them to be denied a chance to find an audience. This sort of thing may be commonplace for a while yet until the streaming economy reaches some kind of equilibrium. In the meantime, there's plenty of sci-fi and fantasy stuff to enjoy on Netflix, including series like The Sandman, 3 Body Problem and Stranger Things, all of which are trucking along into new seasons...for now.

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