There's some bad news for fans of the Max comedy series The Sex Lives of College Girls, but it's news that fans have likely been processing for quite some time. After being canceled by Max after three seasons in March, Warner Bros. failed to find a new home for the series to continue with season 4. It's an unfortunate end to this story which held a lot of promise.
Following the show's cancellation, co-creator and showrunner Justin Noble shared that it wasn't the "outcome I saw coming," since the Mindy Kaling-produced series had maintained popularity on the streamer through its season 3 run. Even if Max wasn't able to keep the series around, fans probably expected other streamers to see the potential in the series enough to save it.
Unfortunately, in an expansive interview with Deadline chatting about the state of various series, Warner Bros. Television chairman and CEO Channing Dungey revealed that the search for a new home for The Sex Lives of College Girls season 4 had ended to no avail. Here's what Dungey said to Deadline about the show's current status:
"We were very much hoping to find a new home for that one, and I think we’ve now come to the end of the road, which is disappointing, because it’s a show that we really love. I’m so proud of the three seasons that we did at Max, but I don’t think there’s going to be more of College Girls."
It's such a shame to see The Sex Lives of College Girls have its potential squandered so soon in its run, but on the bright side, the series can now live on as a cult favorite that gets brought up every so often for being "underrated." We can all be like, "Remember that show that didn't get enough love and more people should have watched?" It sucks that we have to do that, but Sex Lives deserves.
But it also deserved to be saved for a fourth season. The series comes from Kaling's overall deal with Warner Bros. TV, and there were plenty of avenues to pursue to find the comedy a new home. Obviously, Kaling has a great relationship with Netflix after her successful teen comedy series Never Have I Ever and current Kate Hudson hit comedy Running Point, the latter of which is produced by Warner Bros. as well. Netflix could have been a wonderful home for the series.
As we've seen with Netflix saving Girls5eva from Peacock, it's terribly difficult to transition a comedy series from one streaming service to the other, especially when they're more niche than they should be. The financials likely didn't align for Sex Lives to jump ship to Netflix. If TBS was open to housing original scripted content, a move to cable could have also been a great option.
Speaking of that, Warner Bros. Discovery should have used its cable entities to help promote the series sooner. Many streaming original series will air on company-owned cable networks. For instance, Hacks has been airing on TBS to promote the show's return for season 4. The Sex Lives of College Girls should have gotten the cable look during one of its summer breaks. But hindsight is 20/20, isn't it? There's nothing we can do now.
Fortunately, we can still enjoy all three seasons of the series on Max, even if season 4 isn't in the cards. If you haven't finish watching the series or haven't started watching, the season 3 finale ends with all of the storylines wrapped up. In retrospect, that's especially bittersweet.