India, Oct. 11 -- There's a scene in The Get Down, Netflix's lavish but short-lived 2016 series about the birth of hip-hop, in which the young MCs in the Bronx huddle around turntables, eyes wide, excitement palpable, as the breakbeat drops.

The disco fades, the crowd surges, and suddenly there is only rhythm: raw, stripped-down, irresistible. Watching it felt like being transported into a myth: part musical, part street documentary, part fever dream.

For fans of the show, it captured the very essence of a cultural revolution whose effects would last for a very long time. For Netflix's bean-counters, though, it was an expensive gamble gone wrong; the series was canned after one season amid ballooning budgets and production chaos.

Despi...