Director confirms 'best show Netflix has ever produced' will not return for third season

There's nothing quite like getting gripped by a good TV show, but the most possible part of that experience is reaching the end only to realize that it's been cancelled with no future plans in sight.

That's exactly what happened to one of Netflix's best ever shows, as the director has confirmed that it won't return for a third season despite continued protests from fans.

Netflix is home to an abundance of movies and TV shows for you to watch, yet despite the wealth of choice at your disposal it remains still endlessly frustrating when your favorite production reaches a premature conclusion.

The streaming service has somewhat of a poor reputation for ending shows early despite major fan appeal, and record-breaking shows have been canned shortly after dropping onto the service, leaving fans desperate for more than won't arrive.

One show in particular that has seemingly drawn the ire of the most fans following it's cancellation is Mindhunter, which was led by celebrated director David Fincher.

Focusing on two detectives in the FBI's Quantico headquarters, Mindhunter details the early conceptions of what we now know as serial killers, as they interview a number of well-known miscreants to try to understand their minds.

It achieved major praise from both critics and audiences, earning a 97% and 95% respectively on Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer and Popcornmeter, yet this still wasn't enough to keep the show going into a third season, even with a wonderfully teased cliffhanger at the end of the now-final episode.

While there was radio silence for a while following the conclusion of the show's second season, Fincher dealt the devastating final blow that fans were desperate not to hear a few years ago, detailing:

"It's a very expensive show and, in the eyes of Netflix, we didn't attract enough of an audience to justify such an investment."

Fincher himself has been busy with other projects, and the same can be said for many of the show's main cast, but there still remains a significant appetite for the detectives to return, even from some of the actors.

As reported by CBR, both Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany - who play Mindhunter's main detective pair - have expressed their willingness to jump back into their roles, as the former revealed that if Fincher were to return he'd "be there in a second," with the latter adding that his response would be "yes immediately" to news of a third season.

However, despite original plans of a five-season run, neither Netflix or Fincher - the two most important entities in this situation - seem particularly enthused about returning for a third season and beyond, and with the likely hefty budget behind the show it'll end up being a tough sell.

That hasn't stopped fans from expressing their discontent though, as many continue to demand that more Mindhunter is added to Netflix's catalog.

"Ludicrous decision," wrote one fan on X in response to the show's 'cancellation'. "It's literally the best thing Netflix has ever produced."

"I would HAPPILY take a shortened 5-6 episode season just to wrap it up," begged another fan in a Reddit thread, desperate for some closure following the cliffhanger ending.

Perhaps what has left many feeling more hard done by is that, despite Fincher's statement, the show has never actually been 'officially' cancelled, and still remains just on hiatus.

That gives some hope that things will be picked up again at some point and we'll return to the stories of Ford, Tench, and Wendy, but the more time passes the harder it is to see that becoming a reality, as painful as that is to hear.