Earlier last year, NETFLIX made the decision to cancel their slate of Marvel shows (co-produced by MARVEL Television and ABC Studios) which began in 2015 with Marvel's Daredevil: The Complete First Season, and ended in 2019 with Marvel's Jessica Jones: The Complete Third Season. Within this four year period, NETFLIX released three seasons of Marvel's Daredevil and Marvel's Jessica Jones, while two seasons of Marvel's Luke Cage, Marvel's Iron Fist and Marvel's The Punisher were released, alongside with 2017's Marvel's The Defenders: Limited Series (a crossover event of the former four of the above five shows). With this collective vision, came something unprecedented on television, something akin to the silver-screen gargantuan of 'Marvel's The Avengers', whose fourth installment has just become the highest grossing movie of all time. Upon the debut of each of the shows, reported records among NETFLIX's streaming shows were made, with these shows reportedly being critical to the growth in popularity of the streaming service in recent years. These shows came with them an extremely large fan-base that loved this street-level side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and were just beginning to see the shows expand on a further never-before-seen next step in their evolution.

However before this could even be seen, NETFLIX made the decision to prematurely cancel each of the shows, leaving their visions incomplete. While MARVEL's Daredevil and MARVEL's Jessica Jones had complete three-season arcs, the other shows were not so lucky, with all being cancelled either on cliffhangers, or before their long-awaited build-ups could be resolved. This obviously upset a great many fans, who then took to the internet to either complain or campaign, with just one of the campaigns achieving 342,000 signatures (as of date).

Perhaps, backstage shenanigans to which the viewers are unaware are occurring. NETFLIX obviously had their reasons, which to the viewers remain undisclosed. Though the matter is, had the shows been beneficial to NETFLIX to continue at the quality they currently were, they would be alive today. NETFLIX cancelled every single one of the shows perhaps because they believed producing their own upcoming superhero shows based on Mark Millar's properties, dubbed "Millarworld", would make more business sense than continuing to license characters from MARVEL. However, we should consider statements from NETFLIX in the past - one example being: [https://twitter.com/netflix/status/875059522376749056 - "We don’t like leaving a story unfinished. We learned a lot from Sense and we’re going to try not to do this in the future.", 14 June 2017. Would this not lead a television show company such as MARVEL Television, who only want to make quality shows and tell good stories to believe you would keep their shows, at least if they are successful (which we knew them to be). Surely public statements like these would mislead visionaries into signing with you, who would then be surprised once their shows are cancelled. Despite them saying "we're going to try not to do this" it would stand to reason that out of MARVEL's six shows, at least one of them should survive [a means for any signed companies to get out of a bad contract surely?]. Its clear NETFLIX simply wanted to cancel all the Marvel shows, with little-to-no regard for the fans. This mass content assassination goes entirely against what NETFLIX stands for, as they pride themselves on being the "rescuer" of shows rather than the "killer". NETFLIX often brings back unfinished and popular shows which they claim to be doing with the best interest of all the fans. It is very unlikely and may be counter-intuitive for NETFLIX, after making very public cancellations of the shows to suddenly pick them up again. We know from NETFLIX's past actions and from their statements that they believed the shows weren't profitable enough to continue, and yet they also believe they have the best interests of the fans at heart. Yet the problem is, due to the sudden cancellation of the shows, MARVEL cannot continue the shows elsewhere. After much time, they may be allowed to continue new versions, but we have heard from sources that we may never see a continuation of the versions of these characters that we know and love ever return; their contract made sure of this. MARVEL had very strongly believed their relationship would continue for many years to come, being able at the very least to conclude all the shows they started.

For the above reasons, Reed Hastings, Ted Sarandos, NETFLIX & CO. if you truly have the best interests of the fans at heart, and the shows aren't successful enough to continue, please release them from their contracts and allow any other content provider to pick them up. You know how many fans these shows have. If you truly care for their best interests, the fans YOU brought to your service at the promise of a superhero franchise you cancelled far too early, you will allow the fans to have their conclusions somewhere else. And if your reasoning behind the cancelling of the shows is correct, and they are not profitable enough to continue, then you should have no problem nor competition with another service picking them up. In fact, if they are not profitable enough, a competitor picking them up would be in your best interests. Please understand the fans do not care about profits, nor company politics. We just want to watch the shows we love. With every move you make with these shows only the fans lose, not NETFLIX.

Reed Hastings, Ted Sarandos, NETFLIX, I implore you. If you're truly letting the Defenders go, actually let them go.