The future of MTV’s comedies about the foibles of adolescence has been decided: Yes to superfluous punctuation, no to dick puns, as the network has granted a second season to Awkward. and cast The Hard Times Of RJ Berger into the same tastefully writhing cancellation pile as its horny contemporary Skins. The renewal of Awkward. isn’t a surprise, seeing as it’s the rare MTV teen show that—despite occasional detours into sub-Codyian pop-culture riffs—doesn’t make everyone over the age of 21 feel like maybe we should euthanize all of our children and start over, perhaps by retreating to the woods this time. It also comes shortly after Awkward. creator Lauren Iungerich was hired to head up MTV’s new era of honesty with Dumb Girls, which makes her sort of the Seth MacFarlane of the network, such as it is.
And in the case of The Hard Times Of RJ Berger, well, despite its attempts at evolution, it never really got over the impression that it was all just an extended riff on a single dick joke. But hey, it milked two whole seasons out of that dick joke, until network heads gave it the shaft and decided that its second season finale should be its premature climax. And you can’t beat that. Also: balls, ha ha.