Over the last seven months, there has been a string of new scripted series launching on Netflix that have been renewed, Man On the Inside, Running Point, The Four Seasons, Beauty In Black, Forever, North of North and, most recently Ransom Canyon and Canadian entry Bet. And then there have been a handful of freshmen with wobbly ratings performance that have been stuck in limbo for months: No Good Deed, which premiered Dec. 12, The Residence (March 20) and Pulse (April 3).
The Residence and Pulse have been canceled, Deadline can reveal. There are no current plans for a second season of No Good Deed but there is a theoretical possibility for the dark comedy anthology to come back in the future with a new installment — and a new cast, — sources said.
The slew of Netflix scripted series renewals so far this year also include Bridgerton (for Seasons 5-6), The Diplomat (S4), The Lincoln Lawyer (S4), My Life With the Walter Boys (S3), Tires (S3) and Survival of the Thickest (S3, final season). Meanwhile, in what may be a record low for a network or platform, there has been only one confirmed 2025 Netflix cancellation to date, of sophomore spy drama The Recruit.
The cancellation decisions on Pulse and The Residence are not both recent developments.
According to sources, Pulse, starring Willa Fitzgerald and Colin Woodell, was quietly axed well over a month ago when the medical drama’s cast and creatives were notified, with the actors already up for new jobs.
Pulse (L to R) Willa Fitzgerald as Danny and Colin Woodell as Phillips
Jeff Neumann/Netflix
Billed as Netflix’s take on the medical procedural genre, Pulse, created by Zoe Robyn, was likely hurt by being last to market. It was the last of five new medical dramas to launch in the span of six months, with the other four, Fox’s Doc, NBC’s Brilliant Minds, Max’s The Pitt and CBS’ Watson, all taking hold and getting renewed for second seasons. The impact of The Pitt‘s success was particularly notable as the Noah Wyle starrer was firmly in the zeitgeist when Pulse dropped its season on the same day as The Pitt‘s penultimate Season 1 episode was released. (Pulse may also have been affected by its sexual harassment in the workplace theme, which is not an easy sell to viewers looking for escapist medical soap.)
The Residence cancellation just happened, I hear. The comedic murder mystery also suffered from unfortunate timing — it premiered just a week after the debut of Netflix’s Adolescence and got overshadowed on the platform by the cultural phenomenon that the limited series became, dominating the viewership charts and social conversation for weeks and drawing massive audiences that catapulted it to #2 on Netflix’s Most Popular TV (English) list.
That, coupled with The Residence‘s high cost, made a renewal a tough proposition. Season 1 had an all-star cast, led by Uzo Aduba and featuring Giancarlo Esposito, Randall Park, Susan Kelechi Watson, Ken Marino and Jason Lee, among others, as well as an elaborate production design supplemented by extensive VFX work. Believed to be the largest ever re-creation of the White House, The Residence‘s set was built on seven stages and featured 10 miles of molding, 200 working doors and 144,000 pounds of flooring, per the streamer.
‘The Residence’: Uzo Aduba as Cordelia Cupp, Randall Park as Edwin Park
Erin Simkin/Netflix
Still, The Residence, created by Paul William Davies, comes from one of Netflix’s top production companies, Shonda Rhimes’ Shondaland, which is behind the Bridgerton juggernaut, and it has an engaging central character played by Emmy winner Aduba.
The Residence was always built as an anthology, with Aduba’s brilliant detective Cordelia Cupp (possibly assisted by Randall Park’s FBI agent Edwin Park), solving a different murder every season. I hear there were conversations over the past couple of months about ways to reduce the budget for a second installment, likely in a different setting. Ultimately, that didn’t materialize.
Pulse and The Residence both spent four weeks in Netflix’s weekly global Top 10 (English). Pulse peaked at #3 with 8.5M views; The Residence at #2 with 8.8M views. That was just below recently renewed romantic drama Ransom Canyon‘s performance, which included four weeks in the Top 10, peaking at #2 with 9.4M views for its first full week.
No Good Deed also spent four weeks in the Top 10 but with smaller audiences, peaking at #3 with 6M views.
‘No Good Deed’ (L to R) O-T Fagbenle as Dennis and Teyonah Parris as Carla
Like The Residence, Liz Feldman’s No Good Deed was conceived as an anthology, with a new house, new characters and new crime every season. Likely due to Season 1’s lukewarm delivery, the series has not been renewed. Still, the door has been left open for Feldman, who previously created Netflix’s dark comedy Dead To Me, to pitch a new idea for a second installment, sources said.
In the vein of The White Lotus, No Good Deed was designed to have characters from one season carry over to the next. I hear O-T Fagbenle and Teyonah Parris, who played author Dennis and his pregnant wife Carla, were the only Season 1 actors with multi-year deals. While Dennis and Carla lost out on Lydia (Lisa Kudrow) and Paul’s (Ray Romano) house, the couple bought a nearby property, with the finale teeing up a mystery surrounding Carla’s billionaire father who secretly funded the purchase.
According to sources, Fagbenle and Parris’ options have not expired yet. Still, while things are in flux, it appears unlikely for No Good Deed to stay on the current track with the previously planned second season. If the series is to come back for a second installment, it may be based on a brand new concept.
