Why was Absentia canceled after just three seasons?

After three short seasons, the Stana Katic series, Absentia, came to an end. This wasn’t what the fans wanted, and it led to many heading to social media asking for a fourth season.

Season 4 hasn’t happened, and fans want to know why. After all, the series was well written and had some excellent character growth and storylines from beginning to end. This was one of those shows that was clearly planned out from the beginning, and it’s not surprising that people wanted more.

Why would Prime Video cancel a great show? Well, in this case, it had nothing to do with Prime Video.

Absentia was always planned to be a three-season series

This was not a show that was intended to go on for too long. Katic took to Twitter/X not long after the ending to share the reasoning behind it, according to TV Fanatic. The series was planned to be three seasons and that was it. If you watch how the third season comes to an end, you can tell that this was a reasonable and understandable ending for each of the characters.

"Although we’ve danced with the idea of continuing the tale, Absentia was always meant to be only three seasons, and I couldn’t think of a better note to end on."

Of course, life goes on. We would have loved to follow Emily Byrne on the next stage of her life, but fans would have wanted the entire cast to return. That wouldn’t have made sense with the way the series finale ended.

Katic did say that here were attempts to bring a storyline for a fourth season. People talked, but in the end, they couldn’t find something that would work. It is always best to end a show on a high with fans wanting more rather than to drag it on for the sake of money.

As a fan, I can always respect a show’s decision to bring the story to an end. I love it when shows are able to go out on their own terms, because it’s possible to see the plan and the development and then say a real goodbye to everyone. That was certainly the case for Absentia.