R.I.P. Minx, again

It looks like nobody is swooping in to save Minx this time: After getting a second-season reprieve from the fine folks at Starz, the Jake Johnson and Ophelia Lovibond-starring series has now officially been canceled, Deadline reports. Johnson himself has previously said in interviews that he saw this one coming: He’d already cut his luxurious ’70s series-length hair short before the cancellation notice actually rolled out, telling reporters, “My guess is you can’t beat something up that many times and keep going.”

To Johnson’s point, Minx took a lot of hits, despite getting good reviews for both its initial season, on HBO Max, and its follow-up on Starz last year. For instance: The show was abruptly canceled mid-production on that second season in late 2022, as HBO Max writhed and mutated under the tender loving care of Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav. Starz came to the rescue…but then said second season aired directly in the midst of the twin WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes in the summer of 2023, severely limiting the show’s cast in their ability to promote it. Any one of these incidents could, and has, ruined a lightly-rated, fairly niche critical darling like this one; combined, they pretty much sealed its doom.

Which is a shame, because Minx was funny, sexy, and smart, leveraging creator Ellen Rapaport’s strong writing, a well-realized 1970s setting, and a lively and charismatic cast—including, obviously, Johnson, as a pornographer open to new ideas in the pursuit of making giant stacks of money—to create two solid seasons of television. The show, which co-starred Jessica Lowe, Oscar Montoya, Idara Victor, Michael Angarano, and comedic wrecking ball Lennon Parham, released what’s now its final episode in September of last year.