Sex/Life canceled at Netflix after two seasons

Netflix has canceled Sex/Life after two seasons. The news isn’t all that surprising as series star Sarah Shahi recently signed on to star in ABC’s legal drama Judgement.

Inspired by B.B. Easton’s 44 Chapters About 4 Men, Sex/Life starred Sarah Shahi as Billie Connelly who, “exhausted from taking care of her two kids and feeling nostalgic for the free-spirited life she lived in New York with her best friend Sasha (Margaret Odette) before marrying loving and reliable Cooper (Mike Vogel), starts journaling and fantasizing about her exploits with an ex (Adam Demos).” While the first season of Sex/Life had 232.70 million hours of viewing time over a nearly four-week period, the second season only had 126.8 million hours in a similar time frame. That’s a drop of about 45%, so you can understand why Netflix canceled Sex/Life.

Sarah Shahi also recently expressed on the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast that she “did not have the support” on the second season of Sex/Life that she did in the first. “I’m not going to put it down, but I definitely did not have the support that I did the first season from the people involved in the show,” she said. “It became a much different thing for me, and I’m not afraid to say that. I struggled with the material. I just felt the thing that it had the first season — I mean, I’m never gonna work for Netflix again now after saying all this, but I can’t lie. And it was definitely a challenge.“

While a Netflix spokesperson said that the second season brought Sex/Life to a natural close, series showrunner Stacy Rukeyser told THR that there were still more stories to tell. “The episode was never intended to be a series finale, that’s for sure,” Rukeyser said. “I know there are always more stories to tell with these characters in the Sex/Life universe, and I hope we get the chance to tell those stories. It was important that we get to a meaningful place with each character this season.” Rukeyser added that they could have made “117 seasons of this show! We are not short on ideas.“