Timothy Olyphant's 3-Part 'Suburgatory Meets Evil Dead' Series Was Cancelled Too Soon

Published Sep 13, 2026, 10:00 AM EDT

Ben Sherlock is a Tomatometer-approved film and TV critic who runs the massively underrated YouTube channel I Got Touched at the Cinema. Before working at Screen Rant, Ben wrote for Game Rant, Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop. He's also an indie filmmaker, a standup comedian, and an alumnus of the School of Rock.

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Timothy Olyphant is a legend of the small screen, having starred in some of the best TV shows of the 21st century to date. He first made his name playing Seth Bullock on HBO’s revisionist western masterpiece Deadwood, then became an even bigger star playing a more traditional TV cowboy in Justified. The role of Raylan Givens put Olyphant on the A-list, and secured him regular TV work for life.

In the years since, most of Olyphant’s TV efforts have found the audience they deserved. He starred in a season of Fargo, he voiced a Terminator in the surprisingly satisfying anime series Terminator Zero, he has a recurring self-referential role as a Tatooine marshal across several Star Wars shows, and he was the best part of Alien: Earth, which became a blockbuster hit by finally bringing the xenomorphs to terra firma. He’s been in Lucky, Stick, The Five-Star Weekend, and recently cameoed as Wyatt Earp in Larry David’s historical sketch show Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness.

But not every Olyphant-led TV series is a guaranteed hit; some of his best efforts have gone unnoticed by mainstream audiences. In 2017, during the early days of Netflix’s push into original programming, Olyphant starred alongside Drew Barrymore in a little horror comedy series called Santa Clarita Diet.

Olyphant and Barrymore play Joel and Sheila Hammond, a married couple whose real estate business and quaint suburban family life are both thrown into a tailspin when Sheila is infected with a zombie virus that turns her into a voracious, bloodthirsty cannibal. It combines the suburban satire of Suburgatory with the gory, goopy splatstick of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead films for a wholly unique vision of horror comedy. The series masterfully juxtaposed the airy-fairy pretentiousness of chilled-out Californians with the stress and intensity of bloodshed and cannibalism and supernatural threats.

Could Netflix Bring Back Santa Clarita Diet Now?

Santa Clarita Diet ran for three seasons before being unceremoniously cancelled by Netflix. It wasn’t a situation like The Leftovers, where the network recognizes that the viewing figures aren’t what they need to be but give the creators one more season to properly conclude the story; it’s more like My Name is Earl, where it was abruptly canned on a cliffhanger. By the end of season 3, it felt like Santa Clarita Diet was just getting started, that there was a lot more story to tell with these characters, and a lot more demonic terrors to explore in this world.

It’s been seven years since Santa Clarita Diet was cancelled, and it still comes up on lists of shows that were cancelled too soon. There’s clearly still an appetite for more Santa Clarita Diet, but is it too late for Netflix to reverse its decision and bring the show back for season 4? The actors might have moved on, the writers’ plans might no longer be viable, and the audience might still be too small to justify making more episodes.

But nothing is impossible. Netflix could technically bring back Santa Clarita Diet for a fourth season and just do a time jump to explain the long gap since season 3. It could even be a soft reboot, relaunching the story with the same characters and a new hook. Olyphant and Barrymore are very sought-after actors, with very busy schedules, but their chemistry in the first three seasons was something special, so it would be great to see them share the screen again.

Santa Clarita Diet was one of the early casualties that earned Netflix a reputation for cancelling promising shows before their time. If they bring it back for season 4 all these years later, it’ll make up for that.