Kiefer Sutherland is in the dark about Rabbit Hole season 2, candidly discussing how little he knows about the show’s future. Created by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra, Rabbit Hole premiered on Paramount+ in March. Consisting of eight episodes, and featuring a supporting cast that includes Meta Golding, Rob Yang, and Charles Dance, the series plunges John Weir (Sutherland) into a propulsive conspiracy with many twists and turns.
After the big Rabbit Hole season 1 ending, Sutherland spoke to TV Insider about whether the thriller might get renewed by Paramount+. Sutherland said that he hopes to return as Weir. However, in the quote below, the veteran television star candidly talks about how odd it is “to not have a sense of where they stand with it” and compares his current experience to his previous work in broadcast dramas such as 24 and Designated Survivor regarding the lack of transparency in streaming:
“It was an extraordinary group of people, and we had an awful lot of fun working, and yeah, I hope we get to do it again. It’s so weird now because I did ten years on 24, and I did three years of Designated Survivor, two years of Touch, and those were all network-based shows — at least Designated Survivor ’til the final year, then it was Netflix.
“With the networks, there was a relationship somehow that would get developed pretty quickly and you would know. You would get a sense it would be leaning one way or another, and you would pretty much know as you were finishing up your season what was going to happen. With the streaming services — with Paramount+ and my experience with Netflix, and I have to believe with all of them because I’ve heard this from other actors and writers as well — there’s kind of a wall between the group that makes whatever the programming is and the people that actually program it, and I don’t know why, but Nielsen’s not publishing the ratings for these shows particularly. And so there’s a lot of counting and figuring that’s going on that really you’re not involved with at all. It’s just changed. So it is very odd to not have a sense of where they stand with it.”
Kiefer Sutherland Is The Latest To Discuss Streaming’s Lack Of Transparency
Streaming services rarely reveal concrete viewership numbers. This has led to some frustration within the industry as creatives struggle to understand whether their projects are successful. Most recently, Seth Rogen, who is one of the producers on Prime Video’s The Boys and will star in the Apple TV+ show Platonic, opened up about streaming’s lack of transparency and admitted to feeling uncomfortable with it.
As the WGA strikes for fair wages, one of their goals is also to get transparent ratings and data for their shows. It’s not uncommon, even in cases where a show is renewed for season 2, that producers and showrunners still don’t know how much of a hit a given show is. That is less the case with very popular streaming hits like Wednesday or The Night Agent. However, for shows just below that, or shows that are in the middle tier, it seems to be anyone’s guess.
At least in an anecdotal sense, Sutherland says in the same interview that he’s encountered fans who’ve spoken of their enjoyment of Rabbit Hole‘s evolution. That could be a good sign for season 2. Still, it’s a far cry from the days when a show like 24 was a known hit with the numbers and the social indicators to back it up.
Source: TV Insider
