Netflix subscribers watched the hell out of Boots before Netflix canceled it

The Norman Lear-produced boot-camp dramedy about a closeted Marine in the middle of the "don't ask, don't tell" era was unceremoniously canceled last December.

By Matt Schimkowitz | January 20, 2026 | 7:57pm

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Netflix subscribers watched the hell out of Boots before Netflix canceled it

The people who watch TV have spoken, and they want more queer romance on screen. We could point to HBO Max’s Canadian hit of the season, Heated Rivalry, the hockey romance about two pro stickmen who begin a torrid love affair off the ice. But we’d rather talk about Boots, the Netflix dramedy about a closeted Marine in training, which the streamer abruptly canceled shortly after the Pentagon started whining about it. According to Netflix’s What We Watched report, per Deadline, the series ranked 23rd among the most-watched shows between July and December, making it Netflix’s most-watched canceled series of the last six months. Boots premiered on October 9 and garnered more than 30 million views by the end of 2025, right behind Hunting Wives and beating out Nobody Wants This, The Witcher, Emily In Paris, The Diplomat, and the second season of Ms. Rachel. Obviously, the show wasn’t going to beat Wednesday, Stranger Things, or Man Vs. Baby, but it was a bigger hit than several of Netflix’s buzziest and most promoted shows, so what gives?

The only major hiccup in the show’s short life came from the hollowed halls of military power. Shortly after Boots premiered, Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson called the show “woke garbage,” claiming that hypermasculine Secretary of War and President Donald Trump were “restoring the warrior ethos.” This means that they will not “compromise our standards to satisfy an ideological agenda, unlike Netflix, whose leadership consistently produces and feeds woke garbage to their audience and children.” Boots creator Andy Parker appreciated the ratings boost from the very unbothered, confident army guys. Still, less than two months later, amid critical acclaim and some of Netflix’s best ratings of the year, the streamer opted to put its Boots away permanently. It’s hard not see this as a total miss for the streamer, considering Heated Rivalry‘s success on HBO. The warrior ethos might make for some of the most pathetic army recruitment tools imaginable, but watching streamers, networks, and media conglomerates attempt to appease these guys has been one huge embarrassing failure after another.

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