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Although Netflix’s best fantasy show has only two seasons, this ambitious series only needed these two outings to make genre TV history. Regardless of how viewers feel about the show’s eventual finale, it can’t be denied that the arrival of Game of Thrones in 2011 changed the game for fantasy TV. HBO’s adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice & Fire saga made the bestselling cult books a global mainstream phenomenon, proving that there was a massive audience for mature, R-rated fantasy shows for adults.
The impact this had on cable networks and streaming services is tough to overstate. From AMC’s Interview with the Vampire to Prime Video’s Critical Role spinoffs The Mighty Nein and The Legend of Vox Machina to Netflix’s The Witcher, every entertainment industry giant began pouring money into big-budget adaptations of fantasy books, tabletop games, comics, and video games in the hopes of spawning the next Game of Thrones.
While AMC’s dark fantasy masterpiece did produce the Immortal Universe, it is still easy to see which of HBO’s competitors came closest to replicating the success of Game of Thrones. Netflix spent a staggering $250 million on Arcane, a fantasy series set in the universe of the popular League of Legends video game franchise, and this gamble paid off handsomely as the show soon became one of the most acclaimed fantasy hits of the last decade. Astoundingly, Arcane needed only two seasons and 18 episodes altogether to pull off this critical coup.
Arcane’s Two Seasons Had More Story Than Many Longer Shows
Arcane’s story takes place between the two contrasting cities of Piltover and Zaun, where a class war between the rich and the poor rages. The series focuses primarily on the complex relationship between Hailee Steinfeld’s Vi and Ella Purnell’s Powder, two orphaned sisters who end up on opposite sides of this conflict when Powder becomes the unstable criminal Jinx thanks to her upbringing by a Zaun crime lord, while Vi becomes involved with the rich academic inventor Jayce.
Like the shows set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, Arcane could never have hoped to bring the entire immersive fictional universe of League of Legends to life onscreen within its limited runtime. Like any adaptation of a sprawling, open-world game, the Netflix series faced a tricky conundrum as Arcane needed to feel like part of the League of Legends universe, but also had to avoid becoming bogged down in game lore at the expense of its central storyline.
Arcane Set The Bar Incredibly High For Future League of Legends Shows
Thankfully, Arcane passed this test with flying colors. The show’s story hinted at a long, complex history and a believable world without wasting screen time on franchise ephemera, resulting in a story that was both rich with detail and still reliably fast-paced. Like Netflix’s One Piece adaptation, Arcane told one compelling story in what felt like a rich, complex world filled with other plots for future shows to explore.
Of course, the massive price tag attached to the series means that it might be a while before Netflix’s next promised League of Legends series materializes. Meanwhile, the sheer critical acclaim heaped on Arcane could, ironically, make the show a tough act to follow. Arcane’s two near-perfect seasons set the bar high for the next League of Legends shows, so only time will tell whether the streaming service can replicate its success.
That said, high expectations are a low price to pay for such an inimitably great series. With richly realized characters, a compelling central conflict, and a visual world that was as lush as it was lively, Arcane proved that animated fantasy shows for adults could be among the most impressive and acclaimed titles on TV and streaming, and Netflix’s masterpiece did that in only two seasons.
