Hulu has opted not to renew Mindy Kaling‘s Not Suitable For Work for a second season. The news comes two months after the 20somethings romantic comedy ended its Season 1 run on the Disney streamer.
It is the latest casualty in the YA arena at Hulu, which also recently passed on its pilots Buffy: New Sunnydale, Foster Dade and Don’t Get High.
Not Suitable For Work‘s cancellation leaves multiple storylines up in the air for the professionally driven — and romantically entangled — quintet at the center of it, AJ (Ella Hunt), Josh (Jack Martin), Abby (Avantika), Kel (Nicholas Duvernay) and Davis (Will Angus), as the two-episode finale ended on a big cliffhanger and a couple of smaller ones. By the end of the closer, all five characters found themselves in love triangles, (AJ, Josh & Davis), (Abby, Kel & Kel’s theater colleague), with Davis and AJ’s employment also in limbo after they stood up to their arrogant boss Bill (Jay Ellis).
The Warner Bros. TV-produced ensemble comedy, whose original title Murray Hill was changed by Hulu, was not a breakout but had done respectable business attracting viewers and creating buzz, leaving series creator/executive producer Kaling hopeful about a renewal when Deadline spoke with her at the time of the finale.
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“Our writers room has been up for Season 2, which is wonderful,” she revealed in June. “Of course, the big question is whether we’ll get an official pickup for production, I keep my fingers crossed. I love the show so much, I’m so glad that it’s doing well. One of the things that has made me so happy is how much the cast loves the show, and the writing staff loves the show, and the way that the cast expresses their love through all the social content that they’ve been doing.”
The cancellation of Not Suitable for Work raises questions about the viability of series that bet on largely unknown young actors and do not follow the conventional YA romantic tropes. It may discourage streamers from taking a shot at such shows that are not as easy to market and may develop devoted following that is deemed not big enough. While it drew mixed reactions from critics with 54% on Rotten Tomatoes, the comedy was another crowd pleaser from Kaling scoring 82% with viewers on the platform.
Not Suitable For Work completed Kaling’s trilogy loosely based on her life, which started with Never Have I Ever, which chronicles the teen experience, continued through college with The Sex Lives Of College Girls, and ended with post-college life in New York on NSFW.
The main cast of Season 1 included Hunt, Avantika, Angus, Martin, Duvernay and Ellis. Kaling executive produced with Charlie Grandy, Howard Klein and Greg Mottola.
The news of the series’ cancellation was first reported by Variety.