GLOW Season 4: Netflix Decides Whether It Will Still Happen
GLOW season 4 has gotten a status update.
This article is more than 2 years old
GLOW season 4 was a done deal. The series received a renewal back in August 2019 and production had actually begun to start up on the award-winning series earlier this year. Fans expected to hear some news about the upcoming season, which was reportedly scheduled to be the final season for the series after season 3 ended with a cliffhanger.
Well, we have finally received news about GLOW season 4 and it is shocking, to say the least. Deadline has reported that Netflix will not be moving forward with the show. In fact, they are reversing their renewal and canceling the show outright. There will be no GLOW season 4 and the series will end on an unresolved story. This is a huge blow to both fans and the creatives behind the beloved show. Netflix has said the coronavirus pandemic and shutdowns have affected their decision to move forward with filming the new season.
Netflix is on something of a cancellation spree. Recently, they gave the ax to a celebrated sci-fi series and an Emmy-winning fantasy show. At least with those productions, the necessary budget to bring them to life could have been an understandable factor in the cancellation. With GLOW season 4, it is hard to imagine just how expensive the series could have been. Not to mention that the season already had filming underway. This abrupt ending feels especially cruel from Netflix.
What’s doubly disheartening is that the now final season of GLOW is probably its weakest. However, that felt somewhat by design. The season centered around the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling turning their wrestling show into a Las Vegas stage act. There were some great moments and excellent drama in this season. But, the narrative was constructed around the cast performing the same wrestling show every night. Fans missed the evolution of the GLOW wrestling characters. GLOW season 4 was promising some kind of return to the show’s original structure. Now, we will never know what that would have entailed.
Hopefully, this cancellation will not spell the ultimate end for the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. Though the season has been killed, it would be great if the creative team was able to either repurpose or rewrite their plans for GLOW season 4 into a future feature film. The promise of reuniting these characters in some fashion would act as some reprieve from this bummer news. Leaving the series on such a promising cliffhanger only makes this sudden cancellation hurt twice as much.
GLOW season 4 had started production earlier this year, but the entire shoot had to shut down in mid-March when the COVID-19 pandemic began to affect all productions and businesses. Netflix was trying to figure out exactly how they could bring the series back, possibly delaying it as far as 2022. Unfortunately, the costs behind doing this began to add up. Plus, GLOW is a unique show when it comes to taking proper precautions against possible COVID-19 infection. The series involves lots of repeated physical contact between performers, as well as stunts and scenes that require lots of perspiration and heavy breathing in proximity to others. This made it an extra dangerous (and extra expensive) production to allow.
Thankfully, all of the series regulars have been paid in full for GLOW season 4 and will be moving on to new projects. We will keep our hopes up that the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling will be able to return to our screens one day. But, for now, we are going to spend the rest of our day watching “The Good Twin”, the episode of GLOW that acts like an in-universe episode of the wrestling television show. We could use something that will give us a smile.
