New arrivals aren’t the only titles Netflix subscribers want to add to their watchlists this February. While the streamer has added must-watch movies and TV shows like How to Train Your Dragon and Search Party throughout the month, it’s also tagged some streaming titles with upcoming departure dates. Exactly two years after joining Netflix’s streaming catalog and breaking into the English-speaking TV chart, all three seasons of HBO Max’s gritty martial arts crime drama are scheduled to leave the platform.
There is only a week left to stream Warrior on Netflix. The series, based on Bruce Lee’s original concept and co-executive produced by his daughter, Shannon Lee, ran for 30 episodes and three seasons on Cinemax and then HBO Max from 2019 until 2023. Warrior is set during the Tong Wars of late-1870s San Francisco and centers around Ah Sahm, a martial arts prodigy who joins a powerful crime family and confronts rival Chinatown gangs after emigrating and proving his prowess as a fighter. The series started streaming on Netflix in February 2024 but is scheduled to stop streaming on the platform on February 16th.
If you’re in the market for a show that is great from beginning to end, then Warrior needs to be on your watchlist before its Netflix removal. The series immediately immerses you in the ruthless, gritty, and violent world of late 19th-century San Francisco Chinatown with period-accurate costumes and detailed sets and keeps you watching with some of the best martial arts choreography on TV and brutal, high-stakes drama that drew comparisons to Deadwood or Game of Thrones during its three-season run. The show makes it easy to invest in by grounding the top-tier action in complex, often morally gray characters who naturally evolve throughout the series and whose stories explore themes of survival, power, and morality amidst intense gang wars, racism, and political corruption.
What makes the show’s cancellation even more shocking is that Warrior was a show that got better with every season. The series began with a 79% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and rose to reach perfect 100% scores in Seasons 2 and 3. Warrior also improved its audience rating with each season, adding a point each season after Season 1’s 95% Popcornmeter score. Unfortunately, none of that matter in the turbulent landscape created in the immediate aftermath of WarnerMedia and Discovery’s merger in 2022. Corporate restructuring, budget constraints, and shifting priorities led to a mass content purge of original series and library titles and also a swath of cancellations, and Warrior was axed despite being a show that deserved many more seasons.
If you’re unable to finish all 30 episodes of Warrior before the series leaves Netflix, you won’t be completely out of luck. All three seasons of the show are also available to stream on HBO Max. Given that Warrior is an HBO Max original, viewers shouldn’t have to worry too much about its future availability on the platform, though original titles do occasionally get the boot from their respective services. Warrior is also available to rent or purchase online.
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