Despite a surge of interest on Netflix, where it has held the #1 spot in the US for a few days now, and creator Jeff Rake having sold the show to NBC with a six season plan, the network has decided not renew mystery drama Manifest for a fourth season. And Netflix has declined to pick up the show for Season 4.

The shocking news came practically on the deadline of the cast options being due to expire today. A #savemanifest hashtag immediately began trending worldwide, with the hope and expectation that someone like Netflix may yet pick up the show for its remaining seasons.

The show pulled in huge numbers among NBC's four bubble shows in terms of total viewers. The show, produced by Warner Bros. TV and Universal TV, is now the third of these four shows to be canceled by the network, following the dismissal of Debris and Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist, both of which had not been expected to get the chop. The only such remaining series is Good Girls, which NBC is thought to be renewing.

Rake posted on his Twitter account his disappointment at the news, saying "My dear Manifesters, I'm devastated by NBC's decision to cancel us. That we've been shut down in the middle is a gut punch to say the least. Hoping to find a new home. You the fans deserve an ending to your story. Thanks for the love shown to me, cast, and crew. #savemanifest"

The series' many fans instantly took up the hashtag in the hope that it will indeed find a new home on another network or streaming service. With shows like Clarice recently seeming to be headed for a change of platform, only to come unstuck at the last moment it will now be a tense wait for fans to find out if they will ever get answers to just how the story was supposed to end. Fans on Twitter expressed their annoyance at the decision.

Manifest aired its first episode back in September 2018, and focused on the story of Montego Air Flight 828, which landed after a turbulent fight to find that it had been missing for five years. With supernatural elements coming into play, as the passengers began to find they had abilities to see things that they shouldn't be able to, the series became a successor to Lost, with a slowly unfolding mystery storyline that centered as much on how the passengers coped with the situation as much as the mystery itself.

The show was initially brought to NBC by Susan Rover, who developed the show at Warner Bros. TV and then sold it to, and guided it through, NBC for its run of three seasons. Last fall, she became NBCUniversal's new content chief and had the final say in its future going forward. The fact that she sold the show originally with its six-season plan intact, only to be the one to cancel it half-way through its expected run seems to be what had taken most of those involved aback the most. The news of the cancellation following almost right behind the cliff-hanger ending of the third season, also didn't help soften the blow. Whether the series can find a new home remains to be seen, but it looks like fans are going to make sure they play their part in giving it a good shot. One thing is for certain at the moment, the show will not get a season 4 on Netflix.