After weeks of speculation, Netflix finally locks in more Heartstopper

Joe Locke's Charlie scowls as he heads to school in Heartstopper on Netflix
(Image credit: Netflix)

After weeks of nothing but cancelations and difficult revelations about subscriber losses, Netflix has finally been able to share some good news – it's renewing Heartstopper for two further seasons.

The teen drama has been a critical success for the streaming giant, earning a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while audiences have flocked to it, too (the show reached Netflix’s top 10 list in 54 countries).

As well as being a hit with viewers and critics, though, Heartstopper has also blown up on social media. It shot straight to the top of Variety’s trending TV chart in only its first week of release, boasting over one million engagements on Twitter, and stayed there for a further four weeks. 

Its hashtag, #heartstopper, has also amassed over 4.3 billion views on TikTok.

With numbers and reactions like that, Netflix is normally quick to confirm further seasons, but it's taken the streaming service's executives almost a month to green-light another run. Thankfully, they've now acted, confirming not one, but two more seasons of the hit show. 

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Heartstopper is a coming-of-age drama, adapted from the Webtoon comic and graphic novel of the same name by Alice Oseman. Set in the fictional Truham Grammar High School in England, the story follows student Charlie Spring, who falls in love with his classmate Nick Nelson. We follow the pair's developing feelings and the lives of their friends and parents caught up in the drama.

The show's first season was adapted from the first two volumes of Oseman's graphic novel series. There are two further volumes already published, and a fifth and final instalment is due in the coming months, which, you'd imagine, will form the narrative basis of subsequent seasons. 


Analysis: Why did it take Netflix so long to say yes?

Bearing in mind that Netflix renewed Bridgerton for a whopping four seasons months ahead of the second season's premiere, it did seem like an eternity for Heartstopper's already dedicated fanbase to wait before it was confirmed that more seasons were on the way. 

Netflix has, admittedly, spent the last month in a world of pain. The company has been forced to lay off 150 staff, confirm the end of password-sharing and cancel a swath of projects, both live and in development, so perhaps the caution over renewing Heartstopper was part of that process. 

Either way, it's nice for Netflix to have some good news, and this is likely to be a renewal that will make a lot of people very, very happy. 

Tom Goodwyn
Freelance Entertainment Writer

Tom Goodwyn was formerly TechRadar's Senior Entertainment Editor. He's now a freelancer writing about TV shows, documentaries and movies across streaming services, theaters and beyond. Based in East London, he loves nothing more than spending all day in a movie theater, well, he did before he had two small children…