Why was Origin cancelled?

Origin was cancelled after its first season because YouTube is reportedly focusing on advertising and sponsorships instead of expensive scripted shows.

Origin definitely has elements from other shows, but it is easy enough to follow to make it worth the watch for many fans

However, sadly, Origin was cancelled after its first season. This most likely happened because the show was just not making enough money to justify the cost of its production and because YouTube decided to shift its focus from scripted shows.

Is Origin worth watching?

The YouTube Premium series, Origin, originally aired on the platform on 14 November 2018.

At first, many people were sceptical about whether a YouTube original show would be able to live up to the production value of bigger streaming platforms like Netflix and Prime Video.

Origin was produced by the same team that produced The Crown and Lost, and some of these stylistic influences definitely shine through in the final product.

For instance, even though Origin is relatively interesting as far as dystopian sci-fi premises go, the show relies on flashbacks to flesh out most of the characters’ backstories, just like Lost did.

These flashbacks also vary greatly in terms of how relevant and heavy-handed they are, as was the case in Lost.

However, the comparisons are not all bad and the dramatic timing and writing is definitely comparable to that of The Crown, which makes the show easy to watch and enjoy.

Why was Origin cancelled?

Although Origin was received well and some of the big names in the cast, like Tom Felton in the role of Logan Maine and Natalia Tena who plays Lana Pierce on the show, managed to garner an adequate audience for a show that was just finding its feet, the show was cancelled shortly after its first season started airing.

A YouTube spokesperson informed the press that the Google-owned company would be focusing more heavily on sponsorships and commercial support moving forward.

It seems as though YouTube decided that they were simply not making enough money with their YouTube Originals shows like Origin and Overthinking with Kat & June, compared to what they made from other commercial endeavours like their new music-focused features. YouTube also announced that they would not be accepting any pitches for scripted shows in the future.

However, they later denied this claim and reassured their Premium subscribers that they still have many scripted shows in the works.

Regardless of whether YouTube really cancelled Origin to focus on projects that cost less and rake in more money, many Origin fans were sad to hear about its cancellation and felt like YouTube could have done much more to promote the series when it first started.

The errors that YouTube made with Origin

The first two episodes of Origin are available for free on the YouTube platform, even for users who do not subscribe to the YouTube Premium service.

However, even though this may seem like a genius ploy to get people excited for the new series, many critics agree that these two episodes do not showcase the best aspects of the show and did not entice enough people to keep on watching it.

Science fiction programs are always expensive to produce and with Origin’s massive cast, it is fair to assume that the show was relatively expensive to make.

However, when it came to promoting the show, YouTube did not do much in the way of advertising and many people are unaware that the show even exists to this day.

Even now, four years later, the show’s first episode only has about 600 000 likes and the second episode has just over 100 000 likes in total.

Which projects is YouTube focusing on at the moment?

Even though YouTube has denied the claims that they will not be producing new scripted content and that they will be focusing on their music-centred content moving forward, many people still believe that this is true.

This belief comes from the fact that YouTube has restated their plans to move their original shows from behind the YouTube Premium pay-wall to a new ad-supported format, and most of their original content will likely be in collaboration with creators who already have an established following on the platform.

Is there a chance that Origin will ever come back?

The fans that were devastated when Origin was cancelled after just one season were hoping that the show’s creators would announce that it would move to a new streaming platform.

But since no such announcement has been made and the critical reception of the show was only somewhat average, it is unlikely that the show will ever return.