There will be no second season for Terminator Zero. Netflix has canceled the animated franchise reboot series after one season, series creator Mattson Tomlin revealed on X.
“The critical and audience reception to it was tremendous, but at the end of the day not nearly enough people watched it,” Tomlin wrote. “I would’ve loved to deliver on the Future War I had planned in season’s 2 and 3, but I’m also very happy with how it feels contained as is.”
The reboot takes place directly after 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, across two timelines, “2022: A future war has raged for decades between the few human survivors and an endless army of machines. 1997: The AI known as Skynet gained self-awareness and began its war against humanity.”
Caught between the future and this past is a soldier (Sonoya Mizuno) sent back in time to change the fate of humanity. She arrives in 1997 to protect a scientist named Malcolm Lee (André Holland) who works to launch a new AI system (Rosario Dawson) designed to compete with Skynet’s impending attack on humanity. As Malcolm navigates the moral complexities of his creation, he is hunted by an unrelenting assassin from the future which forever alters the fate of his three children, reads Netflix’s synopsis.
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Tomlin served as creator, writer, showrunner and exec produced alongside Skydance’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger. Masashi Kudo directed and Production IG served as the animation studio.
“Maybe someday I’ll do a big thread about the plans I had for the full five season run,” Tomlin continued. “The series finale was special and it was part of my pitch to get the job. I’ve written all of the season two scripts and outlined pretty much all of season three…Maybe I will return to that world in a different form. I really do love it, and it was extremely gratifying to see so many people connect with it the way they did.”
Deadline has reached out to Netflix for comment.