Picture Credits: Netflix
It’s that time of year again. While we’ve still got a lot to cover with regards to the biggest and most-watched titles of 2025, we can indeed already get onto the flops and disappointments, and there are quite a few of them for 2025. This is a two-parter where we’re beginning with Netflix series.
In the interest of keeping this article readable, we’ve limited this piece to just English-language titles, although there were a fair few disappointments on the international side too. Returning titles like The Snow Girl from Spain and The Accident from Mexico were two of the biggest flops of the year.
Returning Scripted English Shows
A few disappointing returns for Netflix in 2025 led to some incredibly swift cancellations, including a drop we still can’t believe is real.
Cr. Christos Kalohoridis/Netflix © 2025
Let’s start with the biggest flop. Arnold Schwazenneger was back with FUBAR, and it’s safe to say that this is likely one of the most significant rating drops for a show in recent memory. The show only spent three weeks in the top 10s this time around, but you can see quite clearly the drastic difference in viewership compared to season 1 in that time, with views down 76%. An insane drop, and it was an instant candidate for cancellation, which indeed came quickly. What the heck went wrong here? Was it not pushed? Did people not connect as worthy enough to justify a season 2? Was it simply too long a wait? All of the above?
The Witcher season 4 was meant to serve as a sort of a reset for the fantasy series, which has been in freefall in terms of audience sentiment and viewership since that first season. It didn’t come, though, with much of the same criticisms still lingering, and the showrunners’ uncanny ability to sound dismissive and hostile to anyone who dares to say the series strays from the source material or the game that made people fall in love with Geralt and the other characters in the first place.
Depending on the method you use, The Witcher lost anywhere from 52% to 68% of its audience compared to seasons 2 and 3.
Note: This graph uses hours over views because of the split-season nature of season 3.
Even using an unorthodox method of comparison,
Netflix also released the distressed spin-off The Rats, which was a no-show in the weekly top 10s, although it did see a bizarre boost in the daily top 10s a few weeks after release, something we still don’t know why. On the movie side, The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep also didn’t do much business either. It’s fair to say the entire Witcher well has been poisoned, rightly or wrongly, depending on where you sit on the Netflix adaptations.
Another fantastic graph for viewership on The Witcher, courtesy of the Entertainment Strategy Guy (using Nielsen data – covering US connected devices) demonstrates the fall from grace.
Picture Credit: Entertainment Strategy Guy
Ted Danson returned in A Man on the Inside season 2, and although the first season spent five consecutive weeks in the weekly top 10s, the second season failed to appear at all. Now it was a busy time in the top 10s around its time of release (November 20th), given the impending return of Stranger Things, but even so, the lowest views that week of release were 2.3M, suggesting a drop of at least 66%, if not more, compared to season 1. Week 2 was even more competitive and missed out, but still suggests a drop of over 40%. It’ll be lucky to return for a third season, although comedy series often have very low bars to clear for renewals.
Another cancellation earlier in the year, which is a little less clear-cut than FUBAR, was The Recruit, which did struggle in the top 10s given its nearly two-year wait to return, with a 41% decrease in views in its first three weeks compared to the first season.
Sitting in the disappointment camp, but not disaster territory, is The Night Agent for me. Season 2 came in dramatically behind season 1, which is still to say it has decent viewership, given how well season 1 performed. Ultimately, it has already been renewed for a third and (likely) fourth season, so it does not matter so much. Still, this is one to keep an eye on in the coming years to see whether it continues to decline or whether season 2 is the new floor. By week five, season 2’s views were down 45% compared to season 1.
The Sandman concluded with its second and final season, but it wasn’t a big comeback for the show, and Netflix was right early on to make the decision it would be the final season (plus other external influences, no doubt making that decision even wiser). Depending on how you cut it, The Sandman season 2 was up to 60% down on season 1. Not great. Below, we’ve put the hours chart (not views), given the split-season nature of the release, but it tells you the story.
New English Language Shows
Cr. Dana Hawley/Netflix © 2025
We should probably begin with this year’s major English-language scripted cancellations and say that the Obliterated line has been obliterated.
We used to use Obliterated as a viewership goal for a series, particularly more expensive ones, to go above the threshold to get renewed. That was based purely on the fact that all series that got above that line were almost certainly a renewal candidate. The Waterfront was tracking far above
Tracking below that Obliterated line were The Residence, PULSE, and No Good Deed, all of which aren’t set to return.
Here’s how those shows stack up against other relatively recent series debuts:
It’s very rare you have to report that a Tyler Perry show or movie has missed the mark, but that’s the case with Miss Governor (or She The People, as it was initially known – changed with the release of part 2 to reflect its evolving story or perhaps something else) which featured only for a single week in the top 10s before never featuring again. No word on the future of the show, although we’d bet on a second season not happening, especially when you consider how quickly TP has been at getting new seasons of Beauty in Black out the door, given that show’s good performance.
Over the past few years, we’ve come to see new kids’ titles absolutely dominate the kids TV charts and even spend significant spells in the weekly charts too. Think Ms. Rachel and Cocomelon. We’re surprised, then, given the hubbub, collaborations, and press that Sesame Street received, it hasn’t featured in the weekly charts at all (could be in part because of the dominance of Stranger Things throughout November and December), but even on the daily top 10s for kids, it’s only in the US charts and relatively low down. Given the fact that it’s been a household name for decades, you’d have thought it’d be featuring higher. The series followed the mantra of releasing just a few episodes, which gives it a better shot at getting into the top 10s, but alas, no luck.
The live-action series Bet, which adapts the Japanese manga Kakegurui, we thought was a surefire goner when it debuted with incredibly low viewership. Still, in what was one of the shock renewals of the year, Netflix pulled the trigger on a season 2.
On the limited series front, Black Rabbit was perhaps the biggest surprise disappointment, with it ranking amongst the lowest of the new English language titles for the year, and Death By Lightning, despite being bloody brilliant and having only a few episodes, also ranked bottom amongst the other limited series to drop this year.
Finally, there are two mixed performers whose future we still don’t know… House of Guinness and The Abandons. Both fall behind the Obliterated The Waterfront line and, in our opinion, are 50/50 shots at renewal, with The Abandons being the least likely given some of the behind-the-scenes problems the show faced.
Reality and Unscripted Viewership Disappointments of 2025
Quite a few documentary and reality series struggled to get off the ground in 2025.
Sports documentaries continue to struggle with very few making an impact on the weekly top 10s or even the daily top 10s. The obvious ones are the public cancellations of Six Nations: Full Contact and Tour de France: Unchained, both of which ended this year. Starting 5 was also publicly canceled after dropping off a cliff. Similarly, though, Carlos Alcaraz: My Way, Race for the Crown, SEC Football: Any Given Saturday, and Matchroom: The Greatest Showmen all had non-existent presences in the top 10s. F1: The Academy, covering the all-female racing series, only picked up 1.1M views for the entirety of the first half of 2025. However, our understanding is that the series could be returning for a season 2 if some people attached to the show are to be believed.
It feels as though the sports documentary space is well and truly saturated, and Netflix itself is the culprit, killing it by doing too much too soon.
Other complete no-shows in the weekly top 10s in the docu-series space were Blumhouse’s horror nature series Nightmares of Nature, which featured the voiceover of Stranger Things star Maya Hawke. It did spend 2 days in the daily top 10s, but not a strong showing given the muscle working on it.
Some of the music and celebrity-focused docs fared better, and true crime is still the undoubted king on the viewership front.
While some reality shows are still flying high, there should have been other promising reality debuts, but they didn’t materialize. The UK had an abysmal year with Sneaky Links, Celebrity Bear Hunt, and Cheat: Unfinished Business, all of which failed to connect and were canceled.
Firmly in the disaster territory is Squid Game: The Challenge, which has already been renewed for season 3, but don’t count on a fourth. This new season came out AFTER the third season had wrapped and concluded the story (the series is still expected to get a US spin-off, although other plans we’re hearing about may push that back or see it canceled), and it just looks like audiences moved on. By week 2, the series had lost up to 80% of its views.
With Love, Meghan sits in the disappointment category. While there was plenty of passing interest in the first season when it dropped, leading it to rank 10th on Netflix’s weekly list and picking up 2.6M views, that fell away almost immediately once the press and social media noise calmed down. The show then returned for its second season, which barely registered in the daily top 10s, and the Christmas special may as well have not happened, given that it doesn’t even register as a blip. Netflix has stood steadfast behind Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on their deal, but let’s be honest, they’re not justifying their keep, and we’ll likely never repeat the heights of the pair airing their dirty laundry in the tell-all docu-series.
Picture Credit: FlixPatrol daily stats for With Love, Meghan
Adult Animation
Cr. COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2025
Two surprising no-shows in the weekly top 10s in recent times are Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft and Splinter Cell: Deathwatch, which, on paper, should’ve continued Netflix’s recent success in bringing big video games to our screens. The former premiered in late 2024 and returned recently in December, but has so far only managed a single day in the US TV top 10s before dropping out, while the latter did so 6 times. Neither scored particularly well with audiences, and the Engagement Report states that for The Legend of Lara Croft, season 1 never really did particularly, and season 2 couldn’t help it rebound.
The bright side for both shows is that, despite their low viewership, because of how production on animated shows works, their futures were already secured, with both seasons 1 and 2 in the works long before episodes dropped on Netflix. With Tomb Raider, we quickly learned that season 2 would be the last, and we highly suspect that, unless something drastic changes, that’ll be the case with Splinter Cell: Deathwatch, too.
Beyond these two shows, adult animation had another year overall that was incredibly mixed. Bojack Horseman’s spiritual successor, Long Story Short, didn’t feature in the Netflix top 10s at all, which, given the subject matter, we weren’t all that surprised about. Similar to the cases above, we suspect it did pick up a second season renewal, as did Haunted Hotel, which fared better with two weeks in the top 10s, picking up 4.6M views.
Love, Death & Robots returned for its fourth volume and dropped a whopping 50% on prior seasons. The much-maligned Big Mouth returned for its eighth and final season, and unlike all prior three seasons, missed out on the weekly top 10s altogether.
Devil May Cry is perhaps the standout success of the year in the genre, picking up 10.4M views in its first two weeks. Otherwise, though, the genre continues to struggle to get mainstream viewership following the conclusion of Arcane.
This is not to mention that we learned throughout the year that a slew of 2024 animated titles like Twilight of the Gods from Zack Snyder would not be returning for future seasons.
That’s the big ones – what do you think were the biggest series viewership disappointments for Netflix in 2025? Let us know in the comments.
