Netflix has delivered a mix of exciting news and disappointment for subscribers during its latest content presentation. While the streaming giant confirmed the final seasons of Squid Game and Stranger Things will arrive this year, alongside new episodes of fan-favorites like Wednesday and The Witcher, several major series won’t return until 2026. The most notable absences from the 2025 lineup include the fifth and final season of Outer Banks, Season 4 of Bridgerton, Season 2 of One Piece, The Gentlemen, and Avatar: The Last Airbender. For many of these series, this means gaps of up to two years between seasons, highlighting the platform’s shifting approach to content scheduling.
Each series pushed to 2026 faces unique production challenges, explaining its absence from the 2025 slate. For starters, Bridgerton executive producer Jess Brownell has consistently maintained that the series requires two-year gaps between seasons to maintain its high production values and intricate period details. For One Piece, which completed filming its second season in late 2024, the delay stems from the complex post-production process. The show’s extensive visual effects work, combined with Netflix’s global distribution requirements for dubbing and subtitling in multiple languages, pushes its return into 2026.
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The Gentlemen creator Guy Ritchie’s commitments to other film projects have impacted the show’s production, with filming for Season 2 not beginning until spring 2025. Meanwhile, Outer Banks producers have scheduled production of its final season to start in spring 2025, targeting an early 2026 premiere to ensure proper closure for the series. Finally, Avatar: The Last Airbender continues filming its second season through mid-2025, establishing an approximate two-year gap between its first and second seasons.
Netflix’s Evolution in Managing Long-Running Series
Netflix’s approach to its TV release planning reveals significant changes in how Netflix handles its most valuable properties. Following successful experiments with Squid Game, Netflix has adopted a new strategy of ordering multiple seasons simultaneously for certain shows. This approach now extends to Avatar: The Last Airbender, which received orders for both its second and third seasons together. According to Netflix, this commitment allows for more efficient production scheduling and potentially shorter waiting periods between future seasons – when two seasons are shot back-to-back, post-production teams can work non-stop instead of taking a break to wait for new footage to be filmed.
While it can be disappointing to learn that your favorite show is not coming back anytime soon, there’s still much to look forward to in 2025. By scheduling the conclusions of major series like Squid Game and Stranger Things alongside new seasons of established hits such as Wednesday and Emily in Paris, the platform aims to keep viewers invested while giving other productions necessary development time. This balanced approach suggests Netflix has learned from past scheduling challenges, where rushed productions sometimes led to diminished quality and viewer dissatisfaction. Plus, since the company seems committed to renewing its biggest hits for multiple seasons, chances are the waiting time between seasons will only grow shorter in the upcoming years.
ComicBook will continue to provide updates on Netflix’s 2025 programming schedule as new information becomes available.
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