It wasn’t great news for The Gentlemen season 2 when it first debuted, with a nearly 2.5-year wait since season 1. That caused a loss of 45% of its viewers when it debuted, but now things are turning around. And in a pretty unusual way.

The Gentlemen season 2 has now seen viewership rise in its second week by 48% as more and more people return to the show, perhaps some not even realizing it was coming back after all this time. If that wasn’t enough, something highly unusual has happened. The Gentlemen season 1 has actually reappeared on the Netflix top 10 list . So, the two seasons of the show are now two of the top three spots on the list alongside Death of the Pastor’s Wife, the true crime series. I cannot remember seeing a performance like that in at least a number of years, at least not with multiple seasons rising that high at the same time.

What does this mean for season 3? In the sense of renewal, nothing. The Gentlemen season 3 was greenlit ages ago and is starting to film as we speak. The goal is obvious: to reduce the time between seasons this time around. With this filming schedule, the wait time could potentially be cut in half this time around to not be that much over a year.

However, the new surge in interest in both of the show’s seasons should tell Netflix that there is still an audience here, even if initial numbers were not great. I mean, how could they not be with that long of a break? So what this means for season 3 is that it may not have to be pitched as the final season of the show if it’s clear viewership is falling precipitously. Rather, it may be able to conclude open-endedly and set up season 4. Obviously it would be very nice if Netflix just did another extremely early renewal for season 4. I’m just saying, it could make a Slow Horses out of this if it wanted to.

The Gentlemen season 2 reviewed better than season 1 across all meaningful metrics, including Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB scores. Not a huge surge, perhaps, but obviously many liked season 1 as well.

Netflix needs more series that it can continue past 2-3 seasons, as those are few and far between. Yes, The Gentlemen avoided post-season 2 cancellation as so many other shows have not, but the series has the potential to push well into the future, provided it can stay on track with anything resembling a reasonable release schedule.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy .