'Heartstopper' Celebrates Anniversary with a Bittersweet Announcement
On Heartstopper returning for a movie instead of Season 4 and the state of YA TV
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Heartstopper is coming back for more feels — not in another season but a movie.
Considering its early two-season renewal shortly after its first season, it’s been… interesting to be a Heartstopper fan after its Season 3 release in October 2024.
I hadn’t even realized how long the show’s potential fourth season had been in limbo until I just wrote that out. Nearly six months of no news from Netflix.
In the meantime, TV shows about and targeted to young adult audiences continue to dwindle. Max canceled both Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin/Summer School and The Sex Lives of College Girls. The Cruel Intentions reboot was axed by Prime Video.
The CW, which used to be home to countless teen dramas like Riverdale and Gossip Girl, canceled All American: Homecoming but held onto the mothership series, All American. It also ended the Vampire Diaries universe, which spanned three shows and nearly a decade, with Legacies and canceled the spectacular Nancy Drew. Likewise, Freeform’s scripted slate that once thrived on YA stories, when it was ABC Family and after the rebrand, doesn’t have any more to its name.
After I felt like I aged out of Disney Channel with what I believe to be it “golden era,” I bounced between ABC Family — Pretty Little Liars, The Fosters, The Nine Lives of Chloe King — and MTV — Awkward, Teen Wolf, Sweet/Vicious — when I wasn’t watching The CW. There was always something new to watch that entertained me and made me feel less alone during those coming-of-age years.
Only now, as those TV shows continue to get cut down before finding their audiences (Peacock’s Vampire Academy and Netflix’s Lockwood & Co.) or get canceled even when they find those audiences (Netflix’s Shadow and Bone), do I realize how lucky I was to grow up with such a massive slate of YA TV.
As I got older, I realized those shows influenced my love for storytelling and impacted my dreams of being a writer before I even really understood that writing (TV, books, newsletters) was a real job that people had.
I wouldn’t miss an episode of The Vampire Diaries or Degrassi: The Next Generation. My friends and I would have Teen Wolf watch parties. It was so much fun.
I see similar trends with “Belly Summer” for The Summer I Turned Pretty, but there are so few opportunities for those kinds of things because the shows just don’t exist at the same volume anymore. I also don’t blame anyone for trying not to get invested in any YA shows because there is such a trend of them ending so soon.
It’s unfortunate for a subgenre that has become all too underrated, which is probably why I have been so eager to see what happens with Heartstopper.