10 Best New TV Shows Nobody Is Watching

Quite how an A24-produced HBO miniseries featuring Robert Downey Jr. playing numerous roles, from legendary filmmaker Park Chan-wook (Oldboy) no less, managed to fly totally under the radar earlier this year is anyone's guess.

The Sympathizer - an adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen's brilliant Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name - is a bold, ferocious translation of its source text, following a North Vietnamese spy (Hoa Xuande) who infiltrates the South Vietnam army and later flees to the U.S. near the end of the Vietnam War.

With its acclaimed source material and juicy supporting part(s) for Downey, how is this thing being glossed over? 

Some laid the blame at HBO themselves for not adequately marketing it, while others pointed to the impenetrable nature of the novel and sheer weirdness of Downey playing numerous villain roles.

Either way, The Sympathizer sank like a stone week-on-week before wrapping up in late May. 

In the very least, it was always conceived as a limited series adaptation of Nguyen's novel, so it can forego the indignity of being cancelled.