In a fairly surprising move, Netflix has cancelled one of its most high-profile series: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. The streaming service made the announcement that the show will conclude with Part 4, which is the final batch of eight episodes airing in late 2020. This was certainly not the plan, as Part 4 was already filmed and has been in the can for some time and, by most accounts, was not intended to serve as the conclusion to the entire series.

“Working on Chilling Adventures of Sabrina has been an incredible honor from Day One. The cast, beginning with Kiernan as everyone’s favorite teen witch, has been an absolute joy. I am beyond thankful to the crew, writers, editors, assistants, and everyone for pouring so much love into this dark dream of a show,” said showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. “I’m also grateful to our partners at Netflix, Warner Bros., Berlanti Television and Archie Comics for letting us tell the story we wanted to tell, the way we wanted to tell it. We can’t wait for everyone to see Part Four.”

Sabrina originally began development as a Riverdale spinoff at The CW, but the show then moved to Netflix where Aguirre-Sacasa was allowed to get a bit darker and weirder with the material. The show has technically only aired two complete “seasons” but they’ve been broken up into parts. The first season’s 19 episodes were split into Part 1 and Part 2 airing in 2018 and 2029, and Season 2’s Part 3 premiered in January 2020 with eight episodes. What follows in late 2020 for the show’s swan song is Part 4, which will consist of eight final episodes.

Aguirre-Sacasa is just coming off the cancellation of the genuine Riverdale spinoff Katy Keene, which lasted only one season on the CW. And while buzz for Sabrina was high when the show first launched, it does feel like it’s cooled off a bit as the latter parts have aired. Although as always with Netflix, the viewing data isn’t made public. So we just have to assume the cost vs. how many people were watching didn’t make sense for Netflix to continue on with the series.

It’ll be interesting to see how satisfying the Part 4 finale will be as a series finale, and if Netflix ever revisits the show in the future. In between Part 1 and Part 2, they aired a one-off Christmas special. So I suppose there’s always a bit of hope that Kiernan Shipka and Co. could return in the future.

For now, though, prepare for the end by checking out the first images from Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Part 4 below.

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Photo by DIYAH PERA/NETFLIX © 2020
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Photo by DIYAH PERA/NETFLIX © 2020
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Photo by LIANE HENTSCHER/NETFLIX © 2020
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Photo by DIYAH PERA/NETFLIX © 2020
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Photo by DIYAH PERA/NETFLIX © 2020