TV & Beyond on 2025-06-20 13:00:00

heavily fictionalized “GLOW” for Netflix. Backed by “Orange is the New Black” creator Jenji Kohan, the series was an immediate hit with critics, who praised its deft exploration of female friendship and the stellar performances given by Betty Gilpin, Alison Brie, Marc Maron, and Chris Lowell. “GLOW” also managed to work in a heartbreaking storyline about the emotional toll the spread of AIDS was taking on the queer community, a topic that too many shows set in the 1980s avoid altogether to this day.

With a devoted fan following and a total of 18 Primetime Emmy nominations over its first three seasons, “GLOW” appeared to be in great shape as it headed into season 4. Alas, after three weeks of shooting, Netflix abruptly pulled the plug on the show. How could it do this to one of its most celebrated series? Its hand was forced by an act of god.

The Covid-19 pandemic led directly to GLOW’s cancelation

Alison Brie as Ruth Wilder standing in a bathroom in GLOW

Erica Parise/Netflix

“GLOW” was one of many productions that ground to a halt in March 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic began to tear through the United States. You might recall that many movies and shows simply paused for months before studios, networks, and streamers could figure out how to run relatively safe sets, in which case it doesn’t seem to make sense that “GLOW” would be canceled altogether.

At the time, Flahive and Mensch released a joint statement acknowledging that Covid-19 was “a national tragedy and should be our focus.” They then went on to say:

“We were handed the creative freedom to make a complicated comedy about women and tell their stories. And wrestle. And now that’s gone. There’s a lot of s****y things happening in the world that are much bigger than this right now. But it still sucks that we don’t get to see these 15 women in a frame together again.”

Two years after the death of “GLOW,” Brie shared her deep disappointment with Decider. “It’s the great heartbreak of my career,” she admitted. “But it will forever live on as, like, this great thing. I loved working on it — maybe more than anything I’ve worked on! — and I miss it a lot. But I feel very grateful for the time I had on the show.”

There was hope in 2020 that “GLOW” might at least get a movie finale to tie up as many of the show’s loose ends as possible (à la David Milch’s “Deadwood: The Movie”), but now that it’s been six years since the last episode aired, it’s fairly clear that the series is gone for good. Had “GLOW” been further into its season 4 shoot than three weeks, there’s a chance that Netflix would’ve been pot committed to completing the series once folks started going back to work. Unfortunately, it was good business for the streamer to axe it. As such, it’s easily one of the most infuriatingly unfinished shows in recent television history. “Glow” absolutely deserved better.

TV & Beyond on 2025-06-20 13:00:00

The Covid-19 pandemic led directly to GLOW’s cancelation

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