The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance canceled by Netflix after one season

Netflix's prequel series-turned-cult hit The Dark Crystal was a well-loved and exciting gamble: practical puppets, deep lore, and a universe only the most diehard of genre fans held nostalgia for. The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance pitted the Gelflings and Skeksis long before the events of Jim Henson's 1982 film. But only a day after the series picked up an Emmy Award in its debut season, things in Thra are already coming to an end.

Netflix has elected not to renew the series for a second season, leaving only its debut run of 10 episodes — cliffhanger ending and all — as a streaming artifact of The Jim Henson Company's ambitious return to the world it first shared on the big screen in the groundbreaking 1982 movie The Dark Crystal.

In a statement provided to SYFY WIRE, The Jim Henson Company's Lisa Henson — an executive producer on the show — confirmed Netflix's decision not to renew the series, saying the production team is open to finding "ways to tell that story in the future."

“We can confirm that there will not be an additional season of The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. We know fans are eager to learn how this chapter of The Dark Crystal saga concludes and we’ll look for ways to tell that story in the future. Our company has a legacy of creating rich and complex worlds that require technical innovation, artistic excellence, and masterful storytelling. Our history also includes productions that are enduring, often finding and growing their audience over time and proving again and again that fantasy and science fiction genres reflect eternal messages and truths that are always relevant. We are so grateful to Netflix for trusting us to realize this ambitious series; we are deeply proud of our work on Age of Resistance, and the acclaim it has received from fans, critics and our peers, most recently receiving an Emmy for Outstanding Children’s Program.”

Netflix also provided a statement thanking the show's creators and fans:

"We are grateful to the master artists at The Jim Henson Company for bringing The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance to life for fans around the world. We're thankful to the executive producers Lisa Henson and Halle Stanford, and Louis Leterrier, who also directed all episodes, as well as the writers, cast and crew for their outstanding work and thrilled they were recognized with the Emmy this weekend."

Henson recently told SYFY WIRE that the show's creative team was looking forward to exploring more of the story they'd envisioned for the series' second season, even as The Dark Crystal branches out into other media. "We’ve been thinking of Thra as a world that has a reality to it in the past, the present, the future, and even inside the world," she explained.

Directed by Leterrier, the series  —  which featured the voices of Taron Egerton, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nathalie Emmanuel, Helena Bonham Carter, Lena Heady, Jason Isaacs, and Mark Hamill among its castmembers — earned a trove of awards in its single season, including the Emmy for Outstanding Children's Program this past week at the 72nd Emmy Awards.