Picture Credit: Netflix
If you’ve been following What’s on Netflix, you know we covered the miraculous journey of Manifest extensively. From its initial heartbreak when it was axed by NBC to its record-shattering run in the Netflix Top 10s, and finally its eventual supersized Season 4 renewal, Manifest remains one of the ultimate streaming Cinderella stories.
Recently, series creator Jeff Rake—who is also the co-author of the novel and book series Detour—opened up about exactly why the hit sci-fi drama struggled on traditional network television, and why the transition to streaming was the perfect fix.
According to Rake, the writing for the show’s network demise was largely on the wall. “It was no surprise to me when, after three seasons, Manifest got canceled by NBC,” Rake admitted.
He broke down the show’s network television trajectory plainly:
- Season 1: Did great in the ratings.
- Season 2: Did “just okay.”
- Season 3: Did “less well than that.”
But what caused the steep drop-off in viewership? As Rake points out, it wasn’t because the show magically transformed from being uninteresting on a traditional network to being “super interesting on streaming.” Instead, the real culprit was the rigid scheduling of network television and how telling a linear story doesn’t always work over a long period of time.
“My opinion has always been that the audience dropped little by little over the course of those three seasons because you had to wait week to week to watch the show,” Rake explained.
As any dedicated Manifest fan can attest, the show is incredibly complex. It boasts a dense mythology filled with countless moving pieces and intricate puzzles. For viewers watching on NBC, having to keep all of that complex information in their heads week in and week out proved to be a difficult task.
Rake believes this led to a “slow and steady” attrition of the show’s audience. By the end of its three-season run on NBC, there was simply so much lore for people to remember that essential details had fallen out of their heads, ultimately causing them to lose interest.
The Netflix Rescue and the Power of the Binge
As we covered back in 2021, the exact week NBC pulled the plug, Netflix premiered Season 1 and Season 2 on its platform. While these were technically reruns, they reached millions of subscribers around the world who had never even heard of the series during its time on NBC.
“When they started watching it on Netflix, they could binge the show and just keep watching episodes,” Rake noted. “And all that information stayed in people’s heads. And they really went for it. They loved it.”
The results were undeniable. The show rocketed and stayed in the charts for weeks and months, and also performed well globally. The rest, as they say, was history with a final bumper season pickup.
Rake believes this explosive second life on Netflix proves a vital point about modern television: some shows are meant to be watched week-to-week, while other shows are strictly meant to be binged. Clearly, Manifest was always meant to be binged.
Thoroughly recommend subscribing to Jeff Rake’s Instagram feed if you want to break into the industry or are just a Manifest fan. While most of his recent posts have been about his new book Detour, there are a bunch of gems in there for aspiring creatives and fans of the show, in addition to the occasional tease about what could be around the corner, but be warned, much of the comment sections are desperate for any information on the long-rumored spin-off.
