Max has canceled yet another show after a single season. Deadline reports that political drama The Girls on the Bus, inspired by Amy Chozick’s memoir Chasing Hilary, will not be coming back for a second season. The news comes just two weeks after the Season 1 finale. Chozick co-created the series alongside Julie Plec. Melissa Benoist, Carla Gugino, Christina Elmore, Natasha Behnam, and Brandon Scott starred in the series. Benoist also served as a producer with Carl Ogawa.
“While Max will not be moving forward with a second season of The Girls on the Bus, we are grateful to have partnered with immensely talented Amy Chozick, Julie Plec, Rina Mimoun, as well as the teams at Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television,” Max said in a statement. “We are so proud of this powerful story of found family and the celebration of journalism in all its forms. We thank them and our unrivaled cast for all their incredible work and collaboration.”
The first season centered on Benoist’s Sadie McCarthy, “a journalist who romanticizes a bygone era of campaign reporting and scraps her whole life for a shot at covering a presidential candidate for a paper of record. Sadie joins the bus and eventually bonds with three female competitors, Grace (Gugino), Lola (Behnam), and Kimberlyn (Elmore).”
The Girls on the Bus premiered in March but had a quiet launch. Unfortunately, it didn’t even hit the Nielsen Top 10 weekly streaming rankings despite appearing numerous time on Max’s Top 10 list. Reviews have been mostly mixed for the series, which has a 55% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It does have an 83% audience score, but it does not seem like that was enough.
The political drama is the Max series to be canceled. The streamer previously axed The Lazarus Project, The Flight Attendant, Rap Sh!t, Our Flag Means Death, and Julia just this year. It also doesn’t help that The Girls on the Bus is the latest series to be canceled after one season, making the cancellation hurt even more knowing that it only had 10 episodes to get off the ground. As of now, it’s unknown if it will be shopped elsewhere. The series was originally in development at both Netflix and The CW before permanently moving to Max, so it’s always possible it could find its way to either platform.