The fourth and final season of Netflix’s beloved female wrestling dramedy GLOW has been axed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and thanks, kid’s crying. (I’m kid).
GLOW was renewed for a final season in August 2019, but unfortunately, the coronavirus-related shutdown on production has made it too hard to continue, Deadline reports.
“COVID has killed actual humans. It’s a national tragedy and should be our focus. COVID also apparently took down our show. Netflix has decided not to finish filming the final season of GLOW,” series creators Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch said in a statement. “We were handed the creative freedom to make a complicated comedy about women and tell their stories. And wrestle. And now that’s gone. There’s a lot of shitty things happening in the world that are much bigger than this right now. But it still sucks that we don’t get to see these 15 women in a frame together again.”
GLOW was a hit for the streaming giant, starring Alison Brie, Betty Gilpin and Marc Maron.
Maron took to Twitter to share his thoughts on the cancellation, perfectly encapsulating how we’re all feeling right now.
“No more GLOW. Sorry. Stinks.”
No more GLOW. Sorry. Stinks.
— marc maron (@marcmaron) October 5, 2020
The show was being filmed entirely in LA (where the coronavirus situation is, uhh, not good), and was three weeks into filming before the pandemic brought production to a screeching halt. The team only managed to film one episode of season 4 before calling it quits.
According to Deadline, the decision to axe the show was largely a financial one, with the already high-budget show proving too expensive after factoring in all of the COVID-related risk mitigation costs. If that wasn’t enough, the production shutdown also meant that the show wouldn’t actually hit screens until at least 2022, therefore running the risk that the audience simply wouldn’t care for it after a two-and-a-half year break.
“We’ve made the difficult decision not to do a fourth season of GLOW due to COVID, which makes shooting this physically intimate show with its large ensemble cast especially challenging,” a spokesperson for Netflix told Deadline. “We are so grateful to creators Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, Jenji Kohan and all the writers, cast and crew for sharing this story about the incredible women of GLOW with us and the world.”
The regular cast were paid in full for the season.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go binge-watch the first three seasons and cry.
