Netflix reveals the end is coming soon for its rebooted classic show
We get a farewell season, but in a different universe would there be even more?
Netflix has confirmed Heartbreak High will get a third season, but it will also be its last.
Missed it so far? Heartbreak High is a reboot of an Australian teen soap from the mid 90s.
The Guardian described it as the original show meets “Mean Girls, but with more sex,” and the first season came away with remarkably strong reviews and a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score.
Season 2 came out in April, and didn’t get as universally positive a reception. But you won’t find anyone saying it actually represented a huge step down from the original.
The third season will top off the story, and hopefully give the writers a chance to bring the thing to a satisfying close.
“All of us who work on the series are grateful to have the opportunity to see what kind of mess evolves in season three,” says Fremantle Head of Scripted Carly Heaton.
But should we be focusing on the show’s renewal, or that Heartbreak High has also effectively been cancelled at the same time?
Netflix is talking up Heartbreak High season 2’s success, calling it “one of the most popular shows both in Australia and around the world.”
However, when you actually dig up the numbers a different picture begins to appear.
Heartbreak High season 2 only entered the global Netflix chart at number seven in its first week. It peaked at number five in its second week with 20 million weekly hours viewed.
That probably sounds like a lot, but is not all that high compared to mega hits like The Gentlemen and Fool Me Once, which sailed well above 100 million hours in a week.
Its performance is, however, somewhat similar to that of Heartstopper Season 2, which peaked at 28.5 million hours in its first week on stream in August 2023.
It does make you wonder: does YA content struggle to reel in the big viewership numbers when it isn’t attached to Stranger Things or Wednesday? If Netflix was hoping for a cross-generational mega-hit with Heartbreak High, it seems it didn't find it.
