No Season 2: Netflix Cancels The Waterfront Despite Strong Debut Numbers
The series from Kevin Williamson won’t be getting a second run, even though its debut pulled in strong numbers for the platform. Fans who were hoping for more are left hanging as the streamer moves on.
Short version: Kevin Williamson’s coastal crime drama The Waterfront did well — very well — on Netflix, then Netflix quietly decided not to give it a second season. If you want to be annoyed on principle, I get it.
So what actually happened?
The Waterfront premiered on June 19 and quickly became one of Netflix’s buzzy new entries. It spent five weeks on Netflix’s global Top 10, including a rare three-week run at No. 1, and its first full week pulled in about 11.6 million views. That’s not small potatoes.
Still, Deadline reports that Netflix will not renew the series for a second season. Sources say creator Kevin Williamson personally told the cast the news. Which is… abrupt, given how recently it premiered.
About the show (in case you missed it)
The Waterfront is a family crime drama set in the fictional coastal town of Havenport, North Carolina, where the Buckley family has basically run the place for generations. The patriarch, Harlan Buckley, is played by Holt McCallany (you know him from Mindhunter and The Iron Claw). When Harlan gets sick, his kids — Cane (Jake Weary) and Bree (Melissa Benoist) — step into leadership, and then Harlan starts to recover and nobody wants to hand the keys back. It’s violent, messy, and built on those old-school “family power struggles” beats that go all the way back to Dallas and straight through to Yellowstone.
Key people (quick reference)
- Creator/showrunner: Kevin Williamson — famous for Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and hit TV runs like Dawson’s Creek and The Vampire Diaries; currently directing the seventh Scream film (reuniting with Neve Campbell).
- Harlan Buckley: Holt McCallany — credits include Mindhunter and The Iron Claw.
- Cane Buckley: Jake Weary.
- Bree Buckley: Melissa Benoist.
- Maria Bello: a praised but notably absent cast member in recent press conversations.
Why this stings (and why it’s not surprising)
If you follow Netflix moves, this fits a pattern: they’ll greenlight bold things, watch them do well, then make decisions that baffle the rest of us. The Waterfront had real momentum by the numbers and got decent press — including a sit-down from our own Tyler Nichols with McCallany, Weary and Benoist, who had good things to say about Maria Bello — yet it still got cut. That makes you wonder whether internal metrics, cost, or other priorities outweighed the visible success.
Would I like it to find a new home? Sure. It’s a tidy fit for linear and streaming outlets that love serialized family crime sagas. Will that happen? Hard to say. Shows get resurrected, but it’s never a given.
What do you think — should The Waterfront get a second life elsewhere, or is Netflix justified in walking away? Sound off in the comments.