Netflix won't be returning to the Grishaverse: The streaming service has canceled 'Shadow and Bone' after two seasons and scrapped the planned 'Six of Crows' spinoff.
I started with books 4 & 5, not realising there was anything before them. They were much better. They're a bit too YA for me, but I needed something to scratch the Gentleman Bastards itch.
I don't think it was just poor acting that did it. Even Ben Barnes, who I think is a really good actor, couldn't make up for the poor writing and direction. He was definitely still the highlight for me, but watching him in this versus The Punisher or season 1 of Westworld really showed how much the material was lacking here.
There certainly were some actors I wasn't particularly enamoured with, but I think quite a few of them did as well as they could with what they had to work with. I think fairly flat direction and undynamic scenes were the biggest issue, even more so than the not-so-great writing.
In general, though, I found it just felt very "young adult fiction", and not in a good way. I never ended up finishing the first season either.