The Depressing Reason Netflix Ruined The Best Horror Comedy Series In Years

By Jonathan Klotz
| Published 9 seconds ago

Netflix has earned a reputation among its own subscribers for canceling shows as they start to get good. The way Netflix structures its contracts means that any show that goes beyond Season 3 will be renegotiated, which means a pay raise for the cast and crew, but it’s also why very few shows make it to Season 4. Even hits, like Drew Barrymore’s zombie comedy Santa Clarita Diet, aren’t spared, despite earning a 100 percent fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes. 

Suburban Undead

Santa Clarita Diet never should have been a hit. On paper, it sounds like a crazed, fevered dream featuring Barrymore as Sheila, a real estate agent who suddenly develops a taste for human flesh, and Timothy Olyphant, fresh off of Justified,  as Joel, her hapless husband, along for the ride. Suburban zombie is a bonkers premise, but it worked, and the show was an instant hit thanks to the chemistry of its leads and taking the time to dig into the minutia of life as a zombie. 

For the first two seasons, Santa Clarita Diet shows Sheila and Joel trying to figure out their new way of life, from how to find food, to covering up Sheila’s decaying zombie body. Typical suburban tropes, from noisy neighbors to an overbearing boss, come into play, but by bouncing them off the zombie genre, it makes them seem fresh for the first time in decades. Helping to ground the zombie comedy is the rest of the main cast, including Liv Hewson as Joel and Sheila’s daughter Abby, Mary Elizabeth Ellis (Always Sunny’s Waitress) as their neighbor Lisa, and Skyler Gisondo as Eric, Lisa’s son, and Abby’s best friend.

Santa Clarita Diet Gets Better Every Season

As the body count rises with each season, Sheila and Joel struggle to keep up the charade, and Santa Clarita Diet keeps raising the stakes, eventually reaching the point of a cult forming around Sheila and a secret society becoming very interested in the rise of the undead. Throughout it all, the chemistry between Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant remains the best of any modern comedy series, with Olyphant in particular stealing every scene thanks to his increasingly exasperated facial expressions. There’s some wheel-spinning in the middle of every season where it feels like not much is happening, but the pair of stars make the most of every episode.

Santa Clarita Diet comes to an end on a cliffhanger, one that will never be resolved, but that doesn’t make the journey to get there any less enjoyable. You’re left wanting to spend more time with the strange residents of Santa Clarita, especially Sheila and Joel, thanks to how the show may go for laughs, but it also wears its heart on its sleeve and is delightfully earnest. Despite the frequent gore and, well, the whole zombie thing, it’s an offbeat take on the classic wholesome sitcom, and that’s why it was also a hit.

Netflix brought Santa Clarita Diet to an end when it traditionally cuts off shows, and again, the streamer frequently fails to let shows find an audience and grow organically like broadcast television used to, which was a travesty. Barrymore and Olyphant deserved better, and fans of the horror comedy deserved some closure. As it stands, the three seasons and 30 episodes we got hold up among the best comedies of the last decade.

Santa Clarita Diet is still available to stream on Netflix.