Netflix Just Cancelled One Of The Highest Rotten Tomatoes Scored Shows Of 2025
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InnovationGamingNetflix Just Cancelled One Of The Highest Rotten Tomatoes Scored Shows Of 2025ByPaul Tassi,Senior Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet.Follow AuthorDec 16, 2025, 09:18am ESTBootsNetflixI’ve been giving Netflix more credit these days, as it seems to make at least fewer decisions to kill off good shows early, adding them to its graveyard of “what could have beens.” It seems to happen less than it used to, but…it still happens. Poor Boots, you deserved better.Deadline is reporting that Netflix has cancelled Boots after one season, which aired two months ago and has been left in limbo until now. The report there says this was not “straightforward,” where the show did have support, but Netflix data analyzing ultimately won out, apparently. It’s pretty strange, honestly. No, Boots never made it to #1 on Netflix’s top 10 list, peaking at #2, but it stayed inside the list for a while. It shouldn’t be a requirement to hit #1 on the entire streaming service for renewal, plus the show doesn’t feature an A-list cast and production had to have been relatively cheap compared to other, larger series. BootsRotten TomatoesIt also happened to be one of the highest audience-rated series of the year, per Rotten Tomatoes, which Netflix is now squandering. Boots was a very rare series where critics and audiences were identical in their praise, both giving it a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score. On the audience side, that’s especially high. Just yesterday, I wrote up a list of the ten best audience-scored series of 2025 and Boots was #7. Not #7 on Netflix, #7 of any show. Tossing that away feels wrong.MORE FOR YOUThe show seems to have been specifically designed to potentially continue on. It departs from the original book by moving up the time period, and once the boys become Marines, the Gulf War is starting to kick off, which is what season 2 no doubt would have focused on. The only thing I can think of is that there would have been no source material for that, plus a show budgeting a war recreation compared to filming boot camp could drastically up the budget, potentially, at least in Netflix’s view.No, Boots wasn’t some enormous pop culture upheaval, but it was a solidly performing show and one that ranks among viewers’ favorites of the entire year. This one feels like a miss from Netflix, back to the bad old days of cancelling Teenage Bounty Hunters or 1899. But hopefully everyone involved can move on to bigger and better. There are worse shows that could be ended as a standalone one season, as it’s not a true cliffhanger, but still, too bad. Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.Editorial StandardsReprints & PermissionsLOADING VIDEO PLAYER...FORBES’ FEATURED Video