Figure skating is often among the most-watched televised sports, and its most celebrated stars become household names — athletes like Nancy Kerrigan, Michelle Kwan, and Tara Lipinski. Netflix reasoned that there was just as big an audience for a fictional narrative series about figure skating as there was for real skating, and so it produced a show called Spinning Out. Created by ex-figure skater Samantha Stratton, the series starred Kaya Scodelario as Kat Baker, a solo skater who, after a dramatic setback, reinvents herself as a pairs skater. Mad Men and The Last Man on Earth star January Jones steals a lot of scenes as Kat's mother, a former figure skater herself.
Spinning Out was the first Netflix original series of 2020, hitting the internet on New Year's Day. According to Deadline, the service's programming executives only need about a month to gather enough viewership data to determine if a series is going to be a hit, or at least drawing enough people to justify producing more episodes. On February 3, after it had been available for scarcely more than 30 days, Netflix canceled the sports drama after its first and only season.
