Santa Clarita Diet was cancelled over the weeekend. The show was never hugely buzzy, but did have a loyal audience who have been asking why the show was brought to an abrupt end.

Deadline has a good line on what prompted Netflix to punt the show:

…some of Netflix’s cancellations stem from the shows being deemed to have gotten too expensive. That is because of how many of Netflix’s series deals are structured. It is widely known that Netflix employs a “cost-plus” model, offering to pay upfront a show’s production costs plus a premium of 30%+ of the costs. The pacts include bump/bonuses after each season that are getting progressively bigger. While the payments are relatively modest after Season 1 and a little bigger after Season 2, I hear they escalate after Season 3, especially for series owned by Netflix — sometimes from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars — as the studio starts to pay off the shows’ back-end.

Source: Deadline

It feels like Netflix has a problem brewing with a lot of beloved shows being cancelled: If viewers are being constantly disappointed by Netflix terminating shows mid-run, what incentive is there for them to start new series billed as on-going shows. I have a strong recollection of a lot of genre fans online saying that they wouldn’t start new shows on Fox due to the high cancellation-rate of genre series.

Surely if there is a problem continuing shows beyond three seasons due to the cost-structure, Netflix is better off promoting shows from the get-go as a three-season run…

There’s a reason why Jeopardy! contestants don’t ever bet $69. They’re not allowed to. There are three other betting amounts that are banned: $14, $88, and $1488. Apparently these numbers are associated with white supremacists.

Source: The AV Club

Disney passed $1.2 billion globally with Avengers: Endgame, setting new box office records. It accounted for 4 in every 5 tickets being sold at the box office. Audiences can still be found on the big screen with spectacle.

Source: Variety

But… could this passion for Marvel (and other Disney brands) product see 8.7 million US Netflix subscribers jump ship for Disney+? A study conducted by Mindnet Analytics suggested that it was possible.

That seems incredibly unlikely to me. It’s a complementary product to a Netflix subscription and not a primary viewing destination. But… for households that get Disney+ AND Hulu AND Amazon Prime AND Apple TV AND WarnerBros upcoming streaming service…. maybe Netflix starts looking far less essential.

Source: Dark Horizons

And finally…

Like many of you, everything I know about measles comes from an episode of The Brady Bunch in which they all come down with a case of it. Apparently an anti-vaxxer group of idiots on Facebook has taken this as proof that nobody can die from measles.

Something that group should know:

According to Lloyd J. Schwartz, son of Sherwood Schwartz, the creator of The Brady Bunch, all of the Schwartz children were vaccinated:

“‘Dad would be sorry, because he believed in vaccination, had all of his kids vaccinated,’ he says.”

Source: Jezebel

Always Be Watching suggests that everyone checks their immunization history and schedules an appointment with their doctor to get a jab if needed. I did it last week and it took all of 30 minutes of my life. Worth it to protect myself and the community.