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Santa Clarita Diet premiered on Netflix on February 3, 2017. Created by Victor Fresco, the series stars Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant as a married couple of real estate agents whose domestic routine collapses when Sheila dies and returns as a zombie with an insatiable appetite for human flesh. The show also featured Liv Hewson as their teenage daughter, Abby, and Skyler Gisondo as Eric, the neighbor kid who becomes her closest ally as the Hammond family’s increasingly dangerous secrets multiply. While the zombie premise was the catalyst, Santa Clarita Diet‘s actual engine was a portrait of a marriage that became more honest, more passionate, and more dangerous once death removed Sheila’s social inhibitions. The horror-comedy ran for three seasons of ten episodes each, with the second arriving on March 23, 2018, and the third on March 29, 2019. Sadly, the series was canceled one month after its third season dropped, leaving a storyline deliberately unresolved.
Why Did Netflix Cancel Santa Clarita Diet?
The critical trajectory of Santa Clarita Diet across its three seasons tells the story of a show that got progressively better as Netflix grew less interested in paying for it. The first season earned a 70% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a solid debut for a premise that critics acknowledged was difficult to categorize, due to its unusual mix of suburban drama and gore. By the second season, that number climbed to 89%, with reviewers noting that the writing had matured and the character dynamics had deepened into something genuinely affecting. The third season achieved a perfect 100% on the platform, with the critical consensus praising both the morbid humor and its heartfelt exploration of marital woes. Despite the critical acclaim, Santa Clarita Diet was canceled because of how Netflix structures its deals.
