Canceled! Apple TV Plus' big-budget fantasy series axed after just one season

Apple TV has cancelled Time Bandits after just a single season, despite positive reviews for the Terry Gilliam reboot.

There will be no second season of Time Bandits, in news confirmed just a month after the last episode of the show was let loose on Apple TV+.

This was seemingly absolutely not the choice of the creative team, headed up by the likes of Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement.

In a recent interview with ComicBook, Clement said he and Waititi were in the process of writing the second season.

“We are actually writing a second season, but it depends on if people watch the first season. If no one watches it, we throw it away in a bin. But I cannot tell you because I don't want to spoil the second season,” he said.

And, well, it looks like nowhere near enough people watched the show to make season 2 a reality.

As cited by Deadline, the show failed to break into the Nielsen Top 10 streaming rankings at release.

Of course, it was at a disadvantage from the start given Apple TV+ has a smaller user base than Netflix, Prime Video or Disney+.

Apple doesn’t release viewing figures for its shows, and hasn’t announced its subscriber numbers since 2019.

Back in July, Bloomberg reported Apple planned to “rein in” spending on the Apple TV+ service, after finding its $20 billion-plus production spend just hadn’t paid off.

The last few years have seen at the services scramble in various ways. They’ve added advertising-supported tiers, raised subscription fees and implemented measures to combat password sharing.

Streaming has become an intermittent bummer. And while we shouldn’t reserve too much empathy for a multi-TRILLION-dollar company, Apple TV+ has arguably maintained a higher base quality bar than any of the other main streamers.

Want proof? Check out the best Apple TV+ shows you really need to be streaming.