The Netflix gods giveth, and the Netflix gods taketh away, as another fan-favorite TV series has been put out to pasture. While Netflix continues to face stiff competition from Disney+, Prime Video, HBO Max, and all the rest, it still sits as the undisputed king of the streaming services.
Blossoming into a seemingly immovable oak tree from its humble origins as a Blockbuster rival that sent you DVDs in the mail, Netflix is only set to get bigger if its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery goes through.
With the WBD catalog containing everything from Batman to Harry Potter, hobbits to Looney Tunes, it's going to be even more of a squeeze to get everything onto the streaming service. Away from Leonardo DiCaprio's fears that Netflix is about to turn our theatrical experience on its head, and after Matt Damon seemed to confirm the long-held 'second-screen viewer' theory, there's more controversy as the streaming Goliath has just axed another of our favorite TV series.
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Netflix isn't afraid to swing its scythe, and while we've got to praise it for resurrecting the likes of Lucifer and Arrested Development, we've lost count of all the other stellar shows that have been cast adrift into the graveyard of cancellation (we're still not over you, Kaos).
As reported by Deadline, both The Abandons and The Vince Staples Show have been given the boot by Netflix, with the latter being a particular sting due to its cult status and the fact it's got an impressive 94% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Not to make anything worse for the Duffer Brothers, but remember that the divisive final season of Stranger Things has 83%. More than that, The Vince Staples Show's audience score is a lofty 88% compared to Stranger Things season 5's maligned 53%.
First released in February 2024, the show centered on a fictionalized and satirical version of Compton-born rapper Vince Staples. Staples himself co-created the series and starred as the lead, but despite the rave reviews, the numbers speak for themselves.
Deadline claims that viewership dipped between seasons. Whereas it was watched 4.6 million times in its first four months for season 1, this plummeted to 1.7 million times between season 2's November 2025 release and the end of the year.
As the 'vast majority' of views are typically said to occur in the first 90 days, it seems The Vince Staples Show just wasn't enough of a mainstream hit.
In terms of The Abandons, the series had all the makings of a female-first powerhouse thanks to Game of Thrones' Lena Headey and The X-Files’ Gillian Anderson. Unfortunately, the American Western failed to strike a chord with critics and only spent two weeks in the Netflix Top 10 for English series before dropping out of the rankings.
While the writing was already on the wall for The Abandons, the response to The Vince Staples Show's cancellation speaks volumes.
Lamenting the show's loss, one fan complained: "I'll never forgive yall for letting this show fail and I'll never forgive Netflix for failing to promote it."
Another grumbled: "Comprehension at an all time low. Satire shows won’t live long because people don’t read and know about the world. The content they like is hyper fictional. Sad times."
A third said: "Their marketing wasn't the best, the show reminded me of Atlanta but a LA version. Fire show, sucks Netflix pulls the plug that quick."
Alas The Vince Staples Show, we hardly knew ye.