Netflix cancels Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj after less than two years

TVLine

Hasan Minhaj's Emmy- and Peabody-winning topical comedy show has been canceled after six seasons and 40 episodes. The final episode was released on June 28. "What a run," Minhaj tweeted this morning. "@patriotact has come to an end. I got to work with the best writers, producers, researchers, and animators in the game. My 2 babies were born and grew up with the show. TY to @Netflix and everyone who watched. Now it’s time to return these screens to Best Buy." Patriot Act premiered on Oct. 28, 2018 with hopes of changing Netflix's spotty record with talk shows, as The New York Times wrote before the premiere, noting that "Netflix, despite its rapid expansion in other traditional TV categories, has struggled to create this kind of appointment viewing." Minhaj joins a growing list of comedians whose Netflix talk shows have failed, including Chelsea Handler, Michelle Wolf and Norm Macdonald. When The Times asked Minhaj in 2018 if he felt his show was doomed before it started because it was on Netflix, the Patriot Act host responded that didn't see it that way. “If we get this wrong, well, it’s what everyone predicted,” he told The Times a few days before his first test show. “But if we get this right?” His eyes widened and a grin spread across his face. “It feels like Rocky 1 all over again.” In an interview with Variety in June, Minhaj said he liked being on Netflix because of its expansive global reach. “It allowed me to break out of the cognitive framework of being in the late-night world with multiple Jimmy’s because I was not speaking to the North American audience anymore, I’m speaking to the world,” he said. “When I’m doing a piece about the elections in the Philippines, or censorship in China, or Indian elections, or Saudi Arabia — there are more people outside of the continental United States that know about that stuff, then people here in the States, know about those issues.”