The Brothers Sun season 2 isn't happening (and this could be the frustrating reason why)

Despite its stellar cast, including Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh, and its intriguing premise, the crime drama series The Brothers Sun will not be returning for a second season at Netflix, reports Deadline.

The series came from Brad Falchuk, a frequent collaborator with Ryan Murphy on shows like Glee and American Horror Story, and co-creator Byron Wu. Apart from Yeoh, the series also starred Justin Chien, Sam Song Li, Joon Lee, and Highdee Kuan. After releasing on January 4, The Brothers Sun quickly generated strong critical reviews and praise from viewers, but struggled to maintain its viewership.

Deadline writes that while the series spent "five weeks in the Netflix Top 10 for English-language series," it never managed to find a larger audience, with its performance being "modest by Netflix standards." The outlet says its overall viewership numbers remained below 7 million weekly and then slipped "under 2 million for its last two weeks in the Top 10."

With viewership numbers underperforming, it's not too surprising that Netflix opted to cancel The Brothers Sun. However, one also has to wonder how much of that performance is due to a lack of significant marketing.

Netflix has gotten a track record for releasing shows and letting them sink or swim based on its algorithm finding the right people to watch. Sometimes it works and a series becomes a sleeper hit, but more often many of these series just disappear because a lot of people never knew they existed in the first place. At least, that's what many fans on social media believe.

Stars Justin Chien and Sam Song Li release statements about the show's cancellation

Actors Justin Chien and Sam Song Li, who play the titular brothers Charles Sun and Bruce Sun, respectively, released individual statements on their Instagrams thanking fans for their support and lamenting the show's cancellation.

Fans have rallied to their comments sections, calling on Netflix to reconsider their decision to cancel the series. Some have already started social media campaigns in the hopes that it could make the streaming service change its mind, or prompt another streamer to save The Brothers Sun. Unfortunately, the odds aren't looking good for series' future.

Even though the show is canceled, at least we got to hang out with these characters for one excellent season, and I hope that we'll see plenty more of Li and Chien in future projects.