Picture: Netflix
Neil Patrick Harris’s new Netflix comedy Uncoupled debuted in 2022 to great reviews but won’t return for a second season. Here’s a look into the cancelation, including a possible reason why it may have happened.
The series is helmed by Jeffrey Richman and Darren Star, the latter behind another Netflix juggernaut in the form of Emily in Paris. Before that, Star was best known for creating Sex and the City, Melrose Place, and Younger.
Eight comedy episodes landed on Netflix on July 29th, 2022, which followed a man living in NYC having to rediscover life after a long-term relationship suddenly ended.
Uncoupled Season 2 Renewal Status
Official Netflix Renewal Status: Canceled
In January 2023, all three major Hollywood trades announced that the show had been canceled. That makes Uncoupled the fifth major Netflix Original to be canceled in 2023.
Among the cancelation coverage, Deadline noted a plan to move the series to Showtime or another Paramount Global network, but those plans ultimately fell through.
As we’ll come onto in a minute, it’s likely the hours watched and the number of people watching that ultimately didn’t add up enough to justify a second season. Numerous factors go into how Netflix decides to renew or cancel shows.
How well did Uncoupled performing on Netflix?
The series didn’t manage to chart in Netflix’s global top 10 hourly charts in its first three days on the platform suggesting it didn’t have a huge start.
Uncoupled would have needed above 20.17 million hours watched globally to chart between July 25th and July 31st beating out the second season of Stranger Things.
The show did go on to feature in the Netflix global top 10s for a single week between July 31st and August 7th. It picked up 26.52M hours and ranked 6th that week. It dropped out the next week, where it would’ve needed 18.07M hours to rank.
| Week Period | Hours Viewed(M) | Rank | Week in Top 10 |
|---|---|---|---|
| July 31st, 2022 to August 7th, 2022 | 26,520,000 | 6 | 1 |
Raw top 10 data provided by FlixPatrol seems to suggest that the show had a slow start but had dropped out of the top 10s after about 2-3 weeks.
In important markets like the United Kingdom and the United States, the show only stayed in top 10s for around 13-14 days likely suggesting it may not have the longevity to return for a future season.
According to TelevisionStats.com – the show grew to become the 6th most popular show in the world on August 3rd (4 days after its launch) but has steeply declined since then. Just a month later, it’s dropped to #214, suggesting the show may not have the staying power to get renewed as per all the other stats we’ve featured.
One positive sign for Uncoupled is the completion rate (something we’ve documented as being important for renewals in the past).
According to British SVOD-analytics company Digital i, they suggest that Uncoupled has around a 59% completion rate using data from their European panels.
They’ve previously noted that series under 50% typically don’t get renewed.
Completion rates for various Netflix shows in 2022
Episode breakdown of completion for Uncoupled on Netflix
What to expect from Uncoupled Season 2 on Netflix
Should the show get renewed, we’ve already got a pretty good idea on where we’re headed.
At the end of the season, we saw Michael heading home to hear that Colin had actually been reconsidering the split that caused all the problems in the first place. Will Michael consider giving their 17-year-old relationship another shot?
Elsewhere, Stanley has been diagnosed with stage one breast cancer and has to undergo treatment. Kai’s father is still a big question mark given that Kai ducked out of a meeting at the last minute.
Also, thanks to an interview with TVLine, they gave us some key plot threads on where we might be headed in season 2. Darren Star told the outlet “that he anticipates plenty of friction in the writers’ room over how to proceed.”
Picture: Netflix
Would you have liked to have seen Uncoupled return for a second season on Netflix? Let us know in the comments down below.