Movies and TV shows today are mostly dominated by franchises. Netflix is working on a Stranger Things spinoff. Amazon has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on its Lord of the Rings TV show. Every other thing Disney makes is either Marvel or Star Wars, and so on. Where's the originality? Where's the creativity? Where are the new ideas getting people excited?
That's what we critic types like to say when we feel boxed in by too much of the same. But there are lots of good original shows being made, but many of them are getting canceled just as quickly, before they get a chance to become the next big thing.
Netflix has gained a reputation over the years for canceling way too many shows; just look at the cancelation of Shadow and Bone, a series Netflix was once contemplating building into a franchise, as evidence of that. But lately, Max — formerly HBO Max — has been uprooting a lot of shows before they have the chance to bloom. And not just any shows; good ones that had passionate followings and unique perspectives. Max may not be the streaming service that's canceled the most shows overall, but it's the one that's canceled the most shows I've been watching, which is far more concerning.
So let's go over some of the shows that Max has killed before their time, try to figure out why it's happening, and hope it'll never happen again. First on the chopping block is...
Our Flag Means Death (Time of Death: January 2024)
Our Flag Means Death is one of the latest shows for Max to cut off at the knees. This quirky pirate comedy started in 2022, and soon established that there was nothing else quite like it on TV. On one level it's a sitcom, as foppish dandy Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) tries to make it as a cutthroat pirate. On another it's an unabashedly heartfelt romance, as the fearsome pirate Blackbeard (Taika Waititi) meets and falls for Stede; it quickly becomes clear that they're the loves of each others lives. It's also a period piece, complete with costumes, sets and intermittent respect for actual history.
Speaking honestly, sometimes the cocktail didn't go down easy for me. I wasn't always sure when to laugh, cry, or swoon. But that's part of what made Our Flag Means Death different. It didn't stick to a formula, and that was exciting. Plus, the show was stacked front to back with queer actors and characters, still a novelty on TV; that gained it a passionate following online, all of whom were devastated when Max sentence it to death.
Creator David Jenkins had plans for a third and final season fans will never get to see. Maybe the price tag was too high given the returns, or maybe producers were confused over what the show was trying to do. I would have loved for the series to at least finish what it had planned.
Our Flag Means Death is only our first stop on this grim march. Click the button below to continue:
Warrior (Time of Death: December 2023)
This is my personal favorite show on the list. Warrior's journey to Max was a little convoluted. A historical martial arts drama set in San Francisco in the 1870s, Warrior began life on Cinemax, where it ran for two seasons. When Cinemax got rid of all of its original programming, Max picked up the show for what ended up being a third and final season.
What irritates me about Warrior is that no one at Warner Bros. Discovery seemed to want it to succeed. The episodes in season 3 are as blisteringly brilliant as ever — Warrior regularly features fight scenes that punch the teeth out of most of what you'll see at the movies — but they were quietly burned away on Max with nary a bit of promotion. Meanwhile, HBO was airing its reviled show The Idol in its prized Sunday night time slot. You can smell the injustice from three counties over.
Warrior wasn't just an action show; it was a full-bodied adult drama with rich characters, compelling performances and trenchant themes about division and bigotry that could resonate if given a chance. The first three seasons of the show will eventually appear on Netflix, which I hope considers making more episodes.
Infinity Train (Time of Death: August 2022)
Set on a seemingly endless train traveling through a barren landscape, Infinity Train is the brainchild of Owen Dennis, who worked on Cartoon Network's Regular Show. Infinity Train, which also began on Cartoon Network, was gently funny but also dealt with complex themes and followed layered characters. It was for kids but also for everyone. That ambitious mix of tones and genres may have been too much for the executives at Max, because they canned the series after four seasons.
Infinity Train is a special case because the show wasn't just canceled; it was removed from Max entirely, so no one could stream it. About a year later, parent company Warner Bros. Discovery removed it from digital purchase platforms altogether. With no other way to access the series, DVD sales went through the roof.
What happened to Infinity Train highlights an especially troublesome aspect of WBD's behavior: sometimes it doesn't just cancel projects, it obliterates them from the face of the Earth. That's what happened with the Batgirl movie and what almost happened with Coyote vs. Acme. WBD figures it can get more money by erasing these shows and movies completely and writing off the expenses on their taxes rather than paying what it costs to keep them available to Max subscribers. It may make sense on the balance sheet, but it comes off as cruel in a way that will scare away the artists and filmmakers that make subscribing to a service like Max look appealing in the first place. Sometimes shows get canceled — it happens — but to also scrub them from existence is disrespectful and ultimately self-defeating.
The Other Two (Time of Death: June 2023)
The Other Two, a sitcom about the fame-hungry siblings of an overnight internet sensation, started life on Comedy Central before switching to Max for its second and third seasons. At this point, if your show runs somewhere else before getting picked up by Max, you should probably be afraid.
The distinguishing feature of The Other Two was just how nakedly ambitious and selfish its lead characters could be, which made for some caustic comedy at the expense of one of society's newest, most annoying boogeymen: the professional influencer. If that isn't a profession ripe for satire, I don't know what is.
According to sources who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter, showrunners Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider put a lot of themselves into the series, which is great for authenticity but which apparently made for a horribly toxic work environment. At the same time, sources said there was no connection between the behavior of the showrunners and the show's cancelation.
On balance, it's probably best that The Other Two is over; no amount of funny TV is worth human suffering behind the scenes. But I have a terrible feeling that Max canceled the show not because its showrunners mistreated the staff but because they just didn't think it was worth making.
South Side (Time of Death: February 2023)
Here's another great, unique, underseen Max comedy. South Side follows a collection of mostly Black characters living on the south side of Chicago. There was Simon and Kareme, ambitious community college graduates working at a rent-to-own furniture store. There's Officers Turner and Goodnight, odd couple cops as effective at their jobs as circumstances allow them to be, which is not very. There's Allen Gayle the glad-handing alderman and Stacy the aspiring R&B star. South Side has one of the better ensemble casts I'd seen in a sitcom in a long while.
South Side is a comedy first and foremost, but it also took weird stylistic detours seemingly just for fun; sometimes it was tricky to know what some episodes were trying to do, but at least the show took risks. And it's always great to see a sitcom be set somewhere other than Manhattan and LA, for the love of god.
But like a lot of other innovative shows on Max, South Side was canceled as it approached the height of its powers. With the cancelation of this, The Other Two and Our Flag Means Death, Max doesn't seem to have much interest in making us laugh.
Julia (Time of Death: January 2024)
Julia is another recent casualty of Max's quest to rob us of anything nice. The show is a fictionalized account of how iconic chef Julia Child went from diplomat's housewife to national treasure thanks to her show The French Chef, where she cooked on air to the delight of millions. Anchored by a glittering performance from Sarah Lancashire as Julia, this was the rare show that revolved around over-the-hill adults living, loving and finding meaning. Lancashire is backed up by a terrific ensemble that included David Hyde Pierce as Julia's husband Paul, Bebe Neuwirth as her friend Avis, Fran Kranz as her producer Russ, Isabella Rossellini as her co-author Simone, and more.
Oh, and did I mention that TV veteran Judith Light plays the head of the publishing house that puts out Julia's book? Having all of these venerated actors working at the top of their game was reason enough to keep Julia on the air for as long as the creators wanted, on top of its buoyant, wise, warm humor. In a way, Julia reminds me of South Side in that it celebrates the kinds of people who don't normally get their own TV shows, and does a great job of it. Unfortunately, that sort of thing seems to be the kiss of death at Max.
Raised by Wolves (Time of Death: June 2022)
This article is about Max giving to axe to original shows, and there's no show with a premise more original than Raised by Wolves. In brief, the show is about two androids sent to the distant planet of Kepler-22b to raise a group of human children. While there, they encounter a sect of refugee zealots from Earth who were called to the planet by a deity named Sol, a race of aquatic mer-people who want to procreate, and a flying baby snake that becomes a huge kaiju monster by the end of season 2. It was weird and unpredictable, and it was put out to pasture right as it hit a huge cliffhanger with its season 2 finale.
And remember that Raised by Wolves is a sci-fi action show, so the budget is higher than, say, a show about people living their lives on the south side of Chicago. The premise is so weird I'm kind of shocked it was greenlit, but that's also exhilarating; how can you not appreciate a network willing to take a chance on a show like this? And how did they same network later become so risk-averse?
Those aren't rhetorical questions. Read on:
Rap Sh!t (Time of Death: January 2024)
From Issa Rae, creator of the HBO show Insecure, came Rap Sh!t, a dramedy about a pair of estranged high school friends who come back together to form a rap group and break into the music business in the age of social media. As expected from Rae, it was sharp, incisive, funny, and up-to-the-minute about the latest trends in entertainment, all tied together by the warm, believable friendship between the two leads.
Rap Sh!t leaned more into drama in its second season, and showed signs that it would continue to evolve in its third. But it won't get the chance. Rap Sh!t is the most recent show to be canceled by Max at the time this article is going up.
Issa Rae is one of HBO's recent big finds, someone who Time has included more than once on its list of the world's most influential people. Sometimes TV shows get canceled, of course, but if cancelation becomes the norm, you have to wonder how willing high-profile creatives like Rae will be to work with Max in the future.
Love Life (Time of Death: December 2022)
Love Life was a romantic comedy anthology show (hello, high concept) that followed a different person every season, hitting on all of their romantic relationships until they found the person they were going to be with forever.
The first season starred Anna Kendrick and the second William Jackson Harper from The Good Place. Max and HBO shows have no problem pulling big-name actors when they want. The heyday of the romantic comedy movie is long over, but the genre has been having a revival on TV thanks to shows like Heartstopper and Emily in Paris, and seemed like an interesting, more HBO-esque spin on the idea. But alas, this Love Life is over.
Alright, let's honor two more casualties of Max's war on art before we bring this home:
Minx (Time of Death: December 2022 — Time of Rebirth: January 2023 — Time of Death again: January 2024)
Minx, a period comedy about a feminist who teams up with a low-rent publisher to put out the first erotic magazine for women, debuted in 2022 to positive reviews. Max renewed it for a second season, but then reversed course in December and canceled the show, before shooting on season 2 had finished.
The idea that Max would renew a show only to turn around and cancel it after cameras are already rolling on the next season must have creatives asking if WBD is a reliable business. Who wants to work with someone willing to throw that kind of wrench into the production process? As it happens, the cast and crew of Minx got to complete their work, since Starz picked up the second season. The new episodes aired in 2023...and then Starz canceled the show. It's been a topsy-turvy journey for this show.
But at this way, the two seasons of Minx that did get made available to watch on Starz platforms; had Starz not swooped in, they may have been removed from Max and cast out beyond the curtain of time and space, inaccessible to anyone.
Minx reminds me a bit of Julia: an incisive comedy that deals subtly with issues of gender, sexuality, and politics, all while making us laugh. None of that on Max, please.
Made for Love (Time of Death: June 2022)
Here's another original comedy about a trenchant issue that has a lot to say about a modern problem and says it in a funny way, so of course Max has to pitch it straight into the garbage.
Made for Love is about a woman named Hazel (Cristin Milioti) who escapes from the technological compound where she's lived for the past 10 years with her billionaire boyfriend (Billy Magnussen) only to find that he's installed tracking devices in her head that let him know not only where she is, but how she's feeling at all times, allowing him to continue to manipulate her long after she's decided to leave the relationship. Ray Romano plays her dad.
We're living in a time when technology is making huge strides forward faster than we can keep up, and where a tiny class of uber-wealthy moguls seem to control more and more of the economy. Is it a good thing that all this power is concentrated in the hands of a tiny, increasingly out-of-touch minority, or should we be scared? These are questions that Made for Love dives into, with humor helping the medicine go down.
So those are some of the great original scripted shows that Max has taken away from us. Now it's time to ask why they're doing this, and what it implies about the direction WBD is taking.
Why is Max canceling so many good original shows?
A lot of these shows were ordered back when HBO's parent company Warner Bros. was still independent, before it merged with Discovery to become Warner Bros. Discovery, or WBD, in April of 2022. David Zaslav, the new CEO of the merged company, made it clear pretty early on that he wanted to save money. “The grand experiment of creating something at any cost is over,” he said later that year. Clearly, cuts were coming.
And cuts came. Starting with Raised by Wolves, Zaslav and his lieutenants hacked and slashed their way through the Max content library, as we've seen. As WBD CFO Gunnar Weidenfels said at a Citibank conference, "[w]e’re coming from an irrational time of overspending with very limited focus on return on investment, and I think others are going to have to make some adjustments that we frankly have behind us now."
Only those times weren't behind them, because Weidenfels said that in January of 2023. The slashing and burning continued the rest of the year through, with three shows getting canceled just this month: Our Flag Means Death, Julia and Rap Sh!t. I don't think you can explain the mass cancelation of shows on Max just by saying that WBD was trying to balance its books.
Things become clearer when you look at what shows Max kept. There remain some original series without any ties to previously established IPs, like the critical darling Hacks. But a lot of the remaining Max shows are part of franchises, like the Batman-adjacent animated comedy Harley Quinn or the Sex and the City sequel show And Just Like That...
Those shows have their merits, but because they're tied to a previously established franchise, they're limited in what new ground they can break. Investing in these shows is less risky than, say, in a show about an android who gives birth to an alien snake monster. They may be a safer bet, but it's harder for them to become the next big thing nobody knew they wanted, which could hurt the WBD brand in the long run.
But that seems to be the direction that WBD wants to go in. Zaslav has said that the company is "focused on franchises." We know that Colin Farrell will star in a show about The Penguin, the villain he played in The Batman movie. There are other DC shows in the pipeline, like the animated Creature Commandos. We've heard a lot about a Harry Potter TV show in the works at Max. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, a new Game of Thrones prequel series, may be exclusive to Max. Franchises do indeed seem to be the future.
Max is still making original programming; the Chuck Lorre comedy Bookie just premiered, and shows like Duster and The Girls on the Bus are on the way. But original, trail-blazing shows may soon be the exception rather than the norm on Max, which is sad for a streaming service tied so closely to HBO, which has a reputation for pushing boundaries and taking risks other networks are scared to take.
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