The ongoing global health crisis has changed the world of film and television. Films are delayed, cinemas are closing, and shows are getting axed. Sadly, GLOW is another victim of this as Deadline reports the series will not be returning for its previously announced fourth season.
Reports say the series was only three weeks into filming the fourth season when they were forced to suspended production in mid-March, during the first wave of the COVID outbreak. Deadline notes that at the time of the shutdown, GLOW had completed one episode and had started on a second. Sources close to the show said the already an expensive series faced high additional costs due to precautions for its large cast of 20. With the uncertainty around the situation and the direct physicality of the series, all of this pushed the budget too high for Netflix to proceed.
“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,” says series creators Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch 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.”
They went on to add, “We’ll miss our cast of weirdo clowns and our heroic crew. It was the best job.” They ended their note to fans with a call to action: “Register to vote. And please vote.”
GLOW ran for three seasons on Netflix. The series saw immense critical acclaim and a slew of Emmy nominations throughout the three the years.