Rowan Atkinson in Man vs. Bee.
Joining the list of “canceled” series for 2023 is the Rowan Atkinson comedy series Man vs Bee, which won’t be returning for a second season at Netflix.
Released on Netflix in June 2022, Rowan Atkinson, best known for his characters of Mr. Bean and Johnny English, played a housesitter who arrives at a luxurious mansion only to find his time there dedicated to hunting down a rogue bee.
Claudie Blakley, Jing Lusi, and Julian Rhint-Tutt all starred alongside Atkinson in the series, with it getting generally favorable reviews from audiences.
In its review, Decider gave the series a “Stream it” rating concluding that while you have to be in the right mood, “no one on the planet does slapstick better than Rowan Atkinson and this series shows off all the skills that have made his career so successful.”
Man Vs. Bee has been canceled after a single season
The Sun first reported the news today in their rather clickbaity style titled “Netflix show with A-list star axed after just one series,” whereby they revealed that there are “no plans” for any additional second season.
There’s no word on why the show ended, but usually, it comes down to the performance of the title on Netflix.
The news of a cancelation doesn’t necessarily come as a huge surprise given its short format and Netflix’s string of cancelations in the comedy genre. It still counts as a cancellation, given the show was never labeled a limited series (or a mini-series as they’re sometimes referred to) in either press releases or within the Netflix application, even to this day. That certainly left the door open for more, even if the show is nicely concluded by the end.
In total, Man vs. Bee spent two weeks in the global top 10s picking up 43.61 million hours in total, which is commendable given its shorter runtime:
| Week Period | Hours Viewed(M) | Rank | Week in Top 10 |
|---|---|---|---|
| June 19th, 2022 to June 26th, 2022 | 18,210,000 | 10 | 1 |
| June 26th, 2022 to July 3rd, 2022 | 25,400,000 (+39%) | 7 | 2 |
Perhaps most impressive was the YouTube views the initial trailer got, which clocks in at 15 million at the time of publishing. That makes it one of the best-performing trailers in Netflix history (which is cited to often translate to high viewership on Netflix), putting it in front of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Elite, Enola Holmes, and Our Planet.
Do you wish we got more of Man vs. Bee on Netflix? Let us know in the comments down below.
