Our Flag Means Death and 10 other great original shows Max has brutally canceled
By Dan Selcke
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.
