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For the asian show anon: White Nights on Netflix (Night Lights) mainly focuses on the first female lead and then the second female lead. It’s one of the rare ones where there’s barely any m/f relationship (there’s only minimal references to the past brief relationship between the first female lead and male lead). In terms of the level of subtext, there’s quite a lot between the two women from the parallels, dialogue, and OST lyrics? It feels like TPTB def wanted to go in that direction bc they said that ‘womance’ was the focus, but probably there’s only so much that they could do considering it was on a broadcast network. Seo Yi-kyung is one of my favorite characters of all time so maybe check it out if you’re interested!

Awesome, that sounds perfect for what anon wanted. It also sounds pretty great to me, I’m putting it on my list!

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Do you watch any asian shows? Do you know any with f/f relationships or at least ones that doesn’t focus on hetero rs too much?

Ummm, honestly, no, not that many. Precisely because there are so few with f/f OR no m/f, which as you specified, are two different things. I follow people into kdrama, for instance, so I can see that there are a fair number of shows which focus on platonic relationships with women (and then m/f romances for them, but that’s how it goes), I just haven’t watched them myself. From Japan, Miss Sherlock (RIP Yuko) was a great example, and was pretty subtexty. Seonam High School Investigators had them solving cases and one of them was actually f/f. 

Oh, Four More Shots Please, an Indian series on Prime, about a group of female friends and one’s a wlw. Oh, gosh, I forgot about The Rich Man’s Daughter from the Philippines, it was such a rollercoaster ride, but if you go in just kind of ready to skip the second half or skim through it, the first half was cute…well, I mean…there were also dark parts then…it’s a telenovela, lol. Oh, also from Japan, there was Transit Girls, canon f/f. 

But for the most part, webseries are probably the way to go. There was the odd Lily Fever from SKorea, Maaya 2 and The Other Love Story from India, Just Another Love Story from Nepal (though I had an issue with it but if you can get past it, as others have, you might still enjoy it). 

Recently I’ve been seeing a lot of posts on my dash about m/m ships from Thai shows, not as much f/f, but it’s an odd coincidence you asked this yesterday because just the day before, I’d been skimming through the f/f parts in a show called Friend Zone, it starts here if you’re interested. 

Honestly, I’m sure there are a million shows that could fit under what you want, I just don’t know them or can’t remember. 😮

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They really renewed Space Force but cancelled Away……………………………………………………………

And another anon:

I think Netflix is probs going for the lesser diverse stuff with the most famous actors. Like Space Force had zero hype online but it has Steve Carell and Lisa Kudrow. So while Away was extremely popular it’s probably too diverse for Netflix or something or doesn’t have enough big actors that are famous in North America.

Haha, first anon, you are so valid in your offended disbelief. Given one of the biggest guesses people have offered for Away’s cancellation is Swank’s salary, how can that be so much more than Carell/Kudro/Malkovich… And like, it was legit bad, how much more successful could it have been? 

I don’t think Space Force had zero hype, not less than Away, it seemed to make a much bigger noise when it dropped, but that was for different reasons, the actual connection to the real Space Force, it was near the beginning of the lockdowns so everyone was watching anything new, and it just seemed to have so much more coverage that was effectively promo. I dunno if a second season’ll have all that, especially when it was not really that well received when people watched.

It would be pretty sucky if diversity hurt it, and I don’t think it does in itself, but I think they much prefer diversity that leads to increased views in other countries and I dunno that this cast did that, with Netflix not technically available in China, and the Indian actor actually being an British Indian TV actor, not really a blockbuster performer.

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I mean if they do treat successful shows like that I would enjoy a heads up from Netflix so I know agh I miss cable. Streaming networks while convenient sometimes have all these different annoying rules and shit and they either don’t release or lie about their ratings and you can’t live tweet and just ughhhhh

Yeah, there’s some things I appreciate about Netflix’s model but there are a lot of downsides too. I’m pretty glad, for example, that after dropping the whole of The Expanse s4 at once when it first moved to Prime, this year they’ll do it weekly. Some shows you want to sit and absorb. 

And again, I do like that we at least get a full season before they decide not to continue with something, like I’d rather have the first seasons of Desenfrenadas, TBH, and Away than just as pilots hidden away. And I think this is the way to approach them going forward, a season at a time, both for us and writers, I don’t think they can force Netflix to renew by ending on cliffhangers. But of course ideally I wish they’d give these more of a chance than often one badly promoted season. And maybe more of…an even chance, considering what seems to be promoted and successful.

And another anon:

Apparently 17 of Netflix’s most recent cancellations are Female led or have queer characters or people of color

That’s…not a good look. Like, fine, part of it is because they’re including more of that in general, it’s just how proportion works, but still. And if you dive in deeper into which of the shows with that did get renewed and which didn’t, the showrunner and target audience, it still feels like there’s some content that’s acceptable and some that isn’t. Emily in Paris vs TBH, you know? Or even TBH vs Ratched. The latter two can both compare queer female white leads but eesh, the target audience of Ratched is quite different from TBH’s.

And another anon:

What I don’t understand is why so quickly? Away only premiered six weeks ago?

I think from previous decisions (like G*psy’s cancellation) it’s become clear that Netflix looks at the streaming results in the month and a half or so after release to make up its mind, that they can extrapolate interest in their shows from that time. Which isn’t entirely wrong, unless something goes unexpectedly viral, which is extremely rare, you’re not going to see a significant increase in interest months after, right. Even when people continue to watch, it’ll be at a steady rate much lower than right after release. In Away’s case, I think they looked at the budget and covid and were like, yeah, we’re done with that one. :/