Netflix's Masterpiece 36-Episode Fantasy Series Deserved One More Season
Netflix has a variety of fantasy TV shows, among them a 36-episode masterpiece that deserved one more season. Although Netflix still offers an extensive catalog of licensed content, it stands out for its original content. Some of Netflix’s original TV projects across different genres now rank among the best TV shows of all time, including some fantasy TV shows. Stranger Things, One Piece, Wednesday, and Arcane are some of Netflix’s best fantasy shows to date, all of them combined with other genres.
Some of the genres that mix best with fantasy are sci-fi and drama, and one Netflix original show that was a perfect balance of this (with a good dose of dark comedy, too) is The Umbrella Academy. Based on the comic book series of the same name by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, The Umbrella Academy premiered on Netflix in 2019 and was well-received by critics and general audiences, who pointed out its darker take on superpowered characters as one of its strengths.
The Umbrella Academy became one of the best fantasy TV shows of the decade, and it ended its run in 2024 after four seasons. The Umbrella Academy learned from its first season, and the following ones were a big improvement… except the final season. Although The Umbrella Academy season 4 gave closure to the story of the title team, it had one notable change that ended up hurting the show.
The Umbrella Academy's Shortened Season 4 Left The Show Too Much To Do
The Umbrella Academy followed the title team formed by the Hargreeves, seven superpowered kids who, along with 36 other kids around the world, were born in the same mysterious circumstances: on the same day, at the same time, and to women who weren’t pregnant when the day began. Eccentric billionaire and scientist Sir Reginald Hargreeves adopted seven of those kids and trained them to form a superhero team – however, Reginald wasn’t a good parent.
The Hargreeves ended up parting ways, and reunited years later for Reginald’s funeral. The remaining siblings were forced to team up one more time after learning that the apocalypse was fast approaching, and that’s the triggering event for the rest of the series. The Umbrella Academy deals with time travel in every season, as the Hargreeves do their best to stop the apocalypse at different points in time. Season 4 also had time travel at its core, but it was the shortest season with just six episodes.
This heavily limited the final season of The Umbrella Academy, resulting in a rushed story with a confusing explanation of the show’s biggest mysteries, controversial storylines and character changes, and a finale with many unanswered questions. Season 4 had a lot to cover, and it could have succeeded had it been given 10 episodes like the previous seasons.
With One More Season, The Umbrella Academy Could Have Had A More Satisfying Ending
The Umbrella Academy season 4 would have worked as a shorter season had it not been the show’s last. The mysteries left by the first three seasons were so many and too important to the stories of the Hargreeves that using just six episodes to explain them, integrate them into the season’s arc, and still give the Hargreeves proper closure was going to be too much to handle.
A fifth season, either short like season 4 or longer than the previous ones, would have given more time to The Umbrella Academy to develop the answers and solutions to the show’s biggest questions and mysteries, instead of having to go with easy but slightly nonsensical solutions. One more season could have given The Umbrella Academy a more satisfying ending with better developed stories and fewer loose ends, which could have taken the Hargreeves in a different direction.
At the time of writing, there are no plans to expand The Umbrella Academy after its fourth season, so its chaotic ending is definitive. While The Umbrella Academy didn’t have a bad ending, it definitely fell short, especially when compared to the previous seasons, and it’s inevitable to wonder how different (and potentially better) it would have been had it been given more time.