Dead Boy Detectives was cancelled after one season

It was announced – much to the disappointment of fans – that Netflix's The Sandman spin-off series, Dead Boy Detectives, has been canceled after just one season.

The series, which originally piloted with HBO Max in 2021, was sold to Netflix in 2023 and only released this year on April 25.

The series has received critical acclaim, with an average critic rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and an audience rating of 90%, showing that it has real promise and some passionate fans. Neil Gaiman himself was one of the series' executive producers, so it's clear that it could have had a future in the expanded Sandman franchise if given the chance.

But in a tale as old as time, Dead Boy Detectives committed the cardinal sin of falling off, or rather, not immediately becoming the most popular and record-breaking show of all time.

It sat in the top ten on Netflix UK TV three weeks after release, which is decent, but combined with the extremely high praise from those who saw it, that of course still wasn't enough (thanks, Variety).