The Joint Mars Initiative surely wasn't expecting this hiccup.
Deadline first reported that Netflix has given the boot to Hilary Swank's Away, a space mission drama that just premiered on Sept. 4 and earned pretty decent viewership after spending a few weeks in the top 10 of Nielsen's streaming rankings. The Oscar winner played Emma Green, an American astronaut who says goodbye to her husband (Josh Charles) and daughter (Talitha Bateman) for a three-year trip to Mars that doesn't come without complications. Main cast members across the first 10 episodes also included Vivian Wu, Mark Ivanir, Ato Essandoh and Ray Panthaki.
Following the news, Swank took to Instagram to thank her fans for watching. "Love and hope will always remain my ‘North Star," she wrote. "And thank YOU to all my extraordinary followers who watched and supported our beautiful show. Wish we were showing you Mars! Until the next one."
Following Away's September release, Swank also used social media to share that she experienced claustrophobia when trying on the heavy spacesuit Emma wears in the show. In fact, doing so made her entire body break out in sweat and turn red "like a very ripe tomato."
"After six months, I was not able to overcome my claustrophobia, but I was able to come to a type of meeting of the minds with it," she wrote. "When we calm our minds and sit with the fear, NOT try and push it away, we can sit with it in a different way, that makes it ‘doable.'"
Though we're not sure why, exactly, Away was canceled, the news comes at a time when the coronavirus pandemic and production challenges have forced networks to wave goodbye to shows such as Glow, Teenage Bounty Hunters, On Becoming a God in Central Florida and I Am Not Okay With This.
As The Observer recently pointed out, it's deeply unfortunate that many of the series getting the axe are female-lead and specifically speak to previously underrepresented audiences.
Hopefully, this will be the last of the latest bothersome 2020 trend.
Scroll down to see what other shows have recently been renewed or canceled.
The first and final season of Away is now streaming on Netflix.