Netflix’s sci-fi series The OA is the latest canceled show fans are trying to resurrect, and they’re doing it with flowers and hunger strikes.
Since the show was canceled earlier this month, fans have been campaigning to save the series, and according to the Los Angeles Times, they’ve been going to increasingly drastic measures.
The fan-led efforts started out with a Change.org petition. Launched on August 5, the day news of the cancellation broke, the petition has since garnered nearly 80,000 signatures. This strategy, as the LA Times pointed out, is a familiar one fans have employed, sometimes successfully, in various attempts to save canceled shows in recent years. Last year, Netflix added a two-hour finale to Sense8 in response to fan campaigns following the show’s cancellation, while Brooklyn Nine-Nine was famously picked up by NBC after fans cried out against the show’s cancellation on Fox.
As the rapid proliferation of both TV series and platforms makes cancellations increasingly common, however, fans have to get more creative if they hope to successfully resurrect a show. For OA fans, the campaign has included everything from GoFundMe-driven Times Square billboards to delivering flowers to Netflix in reference to a motif in the show’s second season.
Perhaps the most drastic measure fans have undertaken to save the show is hunger striking. “While it looks like I’m protesting a TV cancellation on the surface, I am protesting the capitalist forces that killed the show, general lack of societal support resources, and to raise awareness about properly teaching AI,” said hunger-striking activist Emperial Young, who added that “hunger strikes should not be undertaken frivolously.”
Following protests outside Netflix’s offices on August 21, fans’ next move is boycotting the streaming service. “In these times of uncertainty and anxiety, it’s companies who control and shape our culture — and what we crave most is human connection and meaning,” fans wrote in a statement declaring their plan to boycott. “In rejecting sincerity and humanity, Netflix is endangering their own existence. If by September 10th Netflix does not renew or release ‘The OA’ to be bought or acquired by another platform or network, #SaveTheOA will begin advocating for mass cancellation.”
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