When will Season 2 of ‘Better Than Us’ be on Netflix?

Better Than Us – Picture via Netflix

Better Than Us was one of Netflix’s first big shows from Russia, and it’s a sci-fi epic. Season 2 is technically already on Netflix (more on this in a second), and while more was scheduled to be on the way, it’s highly unlikely we’ll ever see it surface on Netflix. Here’s what we know. 

For anyone unfamiliar with the show, it resembles Channel 4 and AMC’s Humans, which ran for three seasons. It’s about a cutting-edge prototype robot with advanced AI that’s being sought after by the corporation that developed it and the authorities, too, following a murder.

The series featured various dubs, including English, but watching it in its original Russian audio with English subtitles is perhaps best recommended.

Season 1 was made available on Netflix outside Russia on August 16th, 2019, following its first run on Russian channels Start and C1R. Netflix holds the rights to the series through August 2026, when it’ll likely leave the service.

Season 2 of Better Than Us is already on Netflix.

Before we progress into talking about the renewed season, we should point out that Netflix technically already streams season 2. In Russia, the show aired all 16 episodes across two seasons, with the first dropping weekly in 2018 and the second in 2019.

For the Netflix release, the streamer simply combined the first and second seasons, each originally comprising eight episodes a-piece.

For the purpose of this article, though, we’ll refer to any future episodes as season 2, given the Netflix terminology.

Has Better Than Us been renewed for season 2?

Official renewal status: Renewed (last updated: 11/17/2020)

Over a year after the show’s release on Netflix, we got word that the series would return but would be very different.

Variety reported in November 2020 that the series would be coming back in the near future. They state that the production is moving away from Russia into China and will return for ten episodes.

Notably, the series will no longer be in Russian but rather in Mandarin as production shifts to its new home. The AI in the series was designed in China, so it makes sense from a story point of view.

Netflix’s involvement is unknown at this point. Netflix wasn’t involved in the production for season 1 and simply acted as an exclusive distributor. The production company behind the show told Variety that they (meaning Netflix) had “no involvement in the second season,” but that could still mean Netflix manages to pick up the international distribution further down the line.

Since that original report in November 2020, there’s been no real development on that second season so far as we can tell. Alexander Kessel has been active on other projects, such as working on various new movies and TV shows, but nothing on the future of Better Than Us.

In addition, and what adds the nail in the coffin (at least when it comes to Netflix’s involvement), the streamer has stopped financing or buying any shows since the Ukraine war, with them also pulling its service from the country too.

We’ll keep you posted as and when we learn more, but for now, it may be the case that Better Than Us season 2 will be available outside of Netflix. Do you want to see Better Than Us season 2 on Netflix? Let us know in the comments below.