Netflix's 4-Season Dark Fantasy Series Was This Close To Greatness

Published Nov 9, 2026, 8:00 PM EST Angel Shaw is a Lead Writer and Critic on ScreenRant's TV team, covering new-release and classic TV shows across all major streaming platforms. She has been a writer with ScreenRant since 2022 and specializes in Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and fantasy. Angel holds a bachelor's degree in language interpreting and is passionate about all things culture and communication—especially in how it relates to popular media throughout history (from Shakespeare to Friends to Game of Thrones). Netflix really had something great on its hands with its four-season dark fantasy series, but it fell short in the very last moments. The world of television is already pretty unforgiving, and the streaming landscape has made it even harder for projects to stand out amid a sea of content. The fantasy genre doesn't make things any easier, since it's all too common for these shows to flop after only a single season if they don't check all the right boxes. It's for all these reasons that it's rather remarkable when anything sticks. One of these remarkable TV shows is Netflix's The Umbrella Academy. The show premiered in 2019 and pretty quickly proved itself to be unlike any other fantasy series on screens. The Umbrella Academy is deliciously dark, but this is layered up with a quirky, character-driven narrative that aims to subvert the superhero genre at every turn. This isn't an ordinary Marvel or MCU show. Instead, Umbrella Academy is all about complicated families. The story of The Umbrella Academy revolves around a group of seven adopted children with miraculous abilities who are raised as a superhero team, known, of course, as the Umbrella Academy. This family ultimately fractured and dissolved, but the estranged siblings find their reunion as adults following their adoptive father's death. The show is all time travel and apocalypse-level events, layered with family dysfunction and character quirks. For its first three seasons, The Umbrella Academy was on top of the world. Unfortunately, season 4 is when things collapsed. The Umbrella Academy's Final Season Was The Show's Only Weak Link It's important to note that, otherwise, The Umbrella Academy is an excellent series that is still entirely worth watching. Unfortunately, there is really no denying that the fourth and final season really missed the mark. While seasons 2 and 3 both earned impressive 91% scores on Rotten Tomatoes, season 4 came in shockingly low at a "rotten" 55%. Something went wrong, and critics had no trouble pointing out exactly what. First things first, The Umbrella Academy season 4 suffered because of its rushed narrative. While previous installments were made up of 10 episodes, season 4 had only six. It simply wasn't enough time to meaningfully wrap up the established story, but things got even worse when the episodes seemed to focus on all the wrong things. Beloved characters were misused or abandoned, tired plot devices were repeated, and the final big twist of Umbrella Academy felt, to many, like a slap to the face. Overall, it was just unfortunate. The fact that, despite all of this, The Umbrella Academy is still an easy show to recommend is really a testament to the excellence of those first few seasons, especially seasons 2 and 3. It is perhaps better to know ahead of time that the ending won't satisfy the way many would have hoped. However, if you hope to give this fantasy series a try, keep in mind that the ending may still be revised. A Better Version Of The Umbrella Academy Season 4 Is Happening Image via MovieStillsDB Like many great superhero TV shows, The Umbrella Academy is based on a comic book series. Like many other great fantasy TV shows, The Umbrella Academy got ahead of its source material. This meant that Netflix's writers were on their own for season 4 and its ending, on top of the disadvantage of having to wrap things up in six episodes. The good news is that future installments of The Umbrella Academy are on the way, with original creators Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá continuing to put out new content. Since The Umbrella Academy came to its unfortunate close in 2024, the comics have proceeded with several new issues, the most recent having been released on October 28, 2026. The series finale, issue #6, is expected to hit shelves near the beginning of 2027. This will definitively wrap up the story as it was intended to be, and there will be absolutely no need to rush through in the way Netflix did. So, if you get hooked on The Umbrella Academy, take comfort in the knowledge that there is still light at the end of the tunnel. Release Date 2019 - 2024-00-00 Showrunner Steve Blackman Directors Jeremy Webb Writers Steve Blackman Franchise(s) The Umbrella Academy