A month after Netflix cancelled its Neil Patrick Harris-led comedy series “Uncoupled,” Showtime has opted to revive the series with a second season pickup order.
“Uncoupled” is produced by MTV Entertainment Studios which is a part of Paramount Global alongside Showtime. Thus the series is essentially coming home and indications are the plan is to go beyond a second season should it perform well enough for the cabler.
The news comes just hours after it was announced another series, the Andrew Scott-led “Ripley” series based on Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley novels, went the other way as it moved its planned first season release from Showtime to Netflix.
Both deals were reportedly separate, and in fact “Uncoupled” creator Darren Star tried to get the series picked up at Showtime around the New Year before Netflix announced the cancellation on January 13th.
It didn’t happen, but Showtime has undergone a radical overhaul in the past few weeks as the premium cabler is set to be integrated into the Paramount+ streaming platform and will rebrand its linear channel as Paramount+ with Showtime.
Ahead of that, Showtime cancelled multiple series as it plans to target three areas – Complex Characters with subversive heroes (Dexter, Yellowjackets), Powerful Worlds with high-stakes (Billions, Homeland), and Metro-Cultures with diverse stories (The Chi, Queer as Folk).
“Uncoupled” adds to that latter group as Harris plays a mid-40s gay man in New York who tries to rebuild his life after his partner of nearly twenty years (Tuc Watkins) moves out. Tisha Campbell, Brooks Ashmanskas, Emerson Brooks and Marcia Gay Harden co-star.
The second season is expected to be edgier and racier than the version that aired on Netflix.
Source: THR
