Netflix cancels Friends From College after two seasons

Netflix flunks out the Friends From College as the star-studded comedy doesn’t get picked up for a third season.

According to a report from Deadline, Friends From College is calling it quits. The Netflix series starring Keegan-Michael Key, Fred Savage and Cobie Smulders (among others), recently finished its second season on the streaming site.

An official statement from Netflix said that they are “grateful to creators Nick Stoller and Francesca Delbanco for creating a wise, funny and supremely relatable show. We also want to thank the hard-working crew, and we raise a glass to the amazingly talented cast including Keegan-Michael Key, Fred Savage, Cobie Smulders, Nat Faxon, Annie Parisse, Jae Suh Park, and Billy Eichner.”

Stoller, who is listed as the executive producer on two new shows currently in pre-production on pilot episodes, took to Twitter to simply say: “Friends from College will not be returning for a third season. Thanks to everyone who watched it.” CBS has ordered pilots for Stoller’s Our House and The Story of Us, according to Deadline.

The two season run for Friends from College, which premiered in July 2017, ends after 16 episodes. The show was centered around six friends from Harvard whose lives were complicated with lies, infidelity and the trials and tribulations of adulthood.

Reviews from the first season of the show were so bad that it was honestly surprising Netflix even picked it up for a season two. Even the New York Times’ headline reads: “With Grating ‘Friends From College,’ Who Needs Enemies?” Reviewer James Poniewozik goes on to say, “The result is a comedy-drama whose comedy is grating and whose drama doesn’t really engage with its essential sadness.”

The Rotten Tomatoes aggregate critic consensus gave the first season a numbing 24%.

But someone must have convinced Netflix that a season two would be better. And, to be fair, it was. As I noted in my review, the second season did a much better job of working to the cast’s strengths. It got closer to finding a groove that worked. But it still couldn’t really settle in on what kind of comedy or drama it wanted to be.

Complete speculation here, but if there was one area that kept Friends From College from being a clear cut renewal after the first season and an easy decision elimination after its second, it’s the fact that they never quite found an identity. And with all that star power, you need to know what to do with it.

Do you think Friends From College should have been canceled Let us know your thoughts in the comments.