Why Jensen Ackles’ Countdown Was Canceled By Prime Video

In July 2025, Prime Video users became obsessed with Jensen Ackles’ crime thriller series “Countdown.” But it seems that this obsession was not as widespread as Ackles and his colleagues. It was hoped that Amazon would cancel the offer after just two months. This decision will likely come as a bit of a shock to both the cast, crew and fans, as from the outside it appears that “Countdown” was a huge success. Unfortunately, it appears that the global viewership for the series may not have been up to Prime Video’s expectations.

Paying tribute to creator, executive producer and director Derek Haas (“Chicago Fire”), “Countdown” sees Ackles play LAPD detective and former Army Ranger Mark Mitchum, who is recruited into an undercover task force where he finds himself working alongside agents from multiple law enforcement agencies. The undercover crew is tasked with solving the murder of a Department of Homeland Security officer, but as you might expect, they quickly uncover a broader, more sinister conspiracy that has them racing to prevent a major terrorist event. Before the show’s release, Ackles described it as a sort of tribute to action filmmaking of the past. “It was all I grew up loving for entertainment,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “There were action characters and salty characters – there was a question of ‘are they going to do it or not, are they going to succeed? Will they save everyone and catch the bad guys? “It was a bit of a throwback, and I was drawn to it.”

Prime Video has certainly seen success catering to action-starved parents across the country — just look at “Reacher,” whose third season broke ratings records. “Countdown” appeared to be another hit in this vein, but its quick cancellation revealed that it may not have been quite as successful as it seemed on the surface.

When “Countdown” debuted, it seemed to be a huge hit, and over time, it seemed to maintain its popularity, remaining on Prime Video for more than a month after the release of the first season finale. In fact, as of October 10, 2025, the show is still on the US TV charts (via FlixPatrol), where it sits at number 10 and continues to chart in other countries around the world. Furthermore, “Countdown” ranked on the Nielsen Top 10 for streaming originals, an even more impressive feat given the fact that this ranking system takes into account originals across all streaming services. With all that in mind, you have to wonder what prompted Prime Video to put an end to this series so early.

Making matters worse for fans, the show ended in chaos when Jessica Camacho’s agent, Amber, was forced to run across a field at gunpoint while a sniper trained his gun on her before the episode cut to black. Fans were no doubt excited to see how things would play out, but on October 10, 2025, Deadline reported that “Countdown” had been canceled along with other Prime Video series “Butterfly.” As the outlet noted, the decision was somewhat surprising given the show’s apparent success, but claimed that the cancellation probably had more to do with “total global viewership” than anything else. If this is true, it means that while American viewers were quite impressed with Jensen Ackles’ action series, the rest of the world wasn’t so thrilled. But since the show is still ranked number one in multiple markets around the world at the time of writing, this explanation also seems a bit questionable.

Was there something else at play? maybe. Although the reviews themselves were likely not the reason for the cancellation, “Countdown” was not a huge success. The show was released on a weekly schedule, which usually gave shows a chance to build popularity as word of mouth spread. But this did not help the critical response. On Rotten Tomatoes, “Countdown” has a critics score of 35%, based on 17 reviews.

“Countdown” isn’t the first, and certainly won’t be the last, series to be canceled after doing so well initially. Netflix’s “Pulse” suffered a similar fate when it was canceled after one season, despite the fact that it was a huge hit upon launch, and streamers are generally more willing to cancel shows earlier than traditional networks. There are a variety of reasons at play in this situation, from streamers not having to adhere to programming schedules to the economic incentives associated with live streaming businesses. No doubt some of that played a role in setting up “Countdown” early on, which hit Jensen Ackles hard.

The actor posted a video on Instagram in which he thanked the cast and crew, as well as Amazon for greenlighting the project in the first place. Ackles, who looked visibly frustrated in the video (as you might expect), said the cancellation was “upsetting” and that he had a “great time” producing the series. He added: “Sometimes you can start doing your best and checking all those elements, and eventually it’s out of your hands. That’s the way it goes in this industry.”

The “Supernatural” star, who once lost the role of Superman on “Smallville” to Tom Welling before playing Dean Winchester for 15 seasons on “Supernatural,” had already showcased his talents on Prime Video by playing Ben/Soldier Boy on “The Boys,” finally giving Ackles the spotlight Which he deserves. He will soon helm Prime Video’s upcoming spin-off of “The Boys,” “Vought Rising,” and has an ongoing first-look deal with the streamer via his Chaos Machine production company. So, it’s not like he needed to worry too much, even if losing to Countdown was obviously a huge disappointment.

Meanwhile, creator Derek Haas took to Bluesky to provide a quick response to the cancellation and fill fans in on one burning question. “Hey, thanks to Amazon Prime and the amazing cast of Countdown Season!” He wrote, adding: “Fun to make all around! (pssst… long live Oliveras).”