Netflix Breaks Michelle Yeoh’s Heart

Variety confirmed that Netflix canceled Michelle Yeoh’s The Brothers Sun on Friday, much to the disappointment of fans who discovered the show and were drawn in by the first season. The crime dramedy follows the eldest son of a Tawainese triad, Charles Sun (Justin Chien), who must return home to protect his mother and younger brother in Los Angeles. Until now, both of them had been in the dark about the family crime ties.

Michelle Yeoh is far from the only person confused by Netflix’s decision, considering The Brothers Sun sat in Netflix’s top 10 for five weeks after premiering. It even reached the number two spot at some point. If that wasn’t enough, the show was also widely praised by critics and audiences, so it’s safe to say no one really expected Netflix to cancel the series so hastily. 

But, according to Deadline, this is a pretty modest showing for a new Netflix original. The publication reported that the Michelle Yeoh-led show consistently got less than seven million weekly viewers with that number dropping to less than two million in the last two weeks the show was in the Top 10. Those numbers seem pretty good despite Deadline’s analysis, so it’s definitely weird that Netflix gave up on the series so quickly.

It definitely goes to show that Netflix makes a lot of its decisions based on viewership alone, rather than taking audience reaction into consideration. You would think that a Michelle Yeoh-led series would be given more of a chance, especially since the viewership was solid, but that’s not the case. In comparison, the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender got very mixed reviews from audiences and critics but was given the go-ahead for two more seasons to complete the show.

Netflix canceling a show right after its first season is a common problem that has plagued many shows before Michelle Yeoh’s The Brothers Sun. Customers of the platform are sometimes wary of starting a new show for this exact reason not many people want to spend hours of their time watching something that they’re not sure will get an ending. While many streaming companies have stated they would be making a shift from quantity to quality for future streaming shows, there’s little doubt that customers want Netflix to give shows more of a chance before making the decision to get rid of them.

In any case, you can still go to Netflix to stream the first season of Michelle Yeoh’s The Brothers Sun. Unfortunately, that is going to be the only season you’ll be able to watch. Yeoh’s Oscar-winning film Everything Everywhere All at Once was also recently added to the platform.