LOS ANGELES — On the heels of the cancellation of the critically-acclaimed queer pirate comedy Our Flag Means Death, streaming giant Max apologized to saddened fans for not canceling the show sooner.
“We want to thank the cast and crew of ‘Our Flag Means Death’ for all their hard work and dedication to creating two fantastic seasons of hilarious, groundbreaking programming,” Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson Kyle Willshire said. “And to all the fans of the show and the LBGTQ+ representation it was beloved for, we’re sorry we didn’t cancel it while the second season was filming and shelve it forever.”
“It was a mistake. That’s not how we do things here at Max, but we kinda forgot about it,” Willshire added. “The holidays are a chaotic time around here, it won’t happen again.”
The show’s star, Rhys Darby, was disappointed with the ending but happy that Max acknowledged their mistake.
“To be honest, I’m pleased to find out we just slipped under their radar for whatever reason. When we wrapped the second season I wondered if all the love we’d gotten was a trick someone was playing on us, since I knew how much Max hates to keep anything around people actually like,” Darby said.
“It’s a real boost for our confidence,” Darby added. “All we’d ever hoped for in making this show is for it to be so beloved that the studio would make it impossible for anyone to see again.”
Fan of the show Oscar Ramirez, who identifies as non-binary, admitted they were sad about the cancellation, but happy that it was good enough to warrant it.
“It was refreshing and life-affirming to see someone like myself represented on screen, so I figured it wouldn’t last,” Ramirez said. “But to know it was so important to so many people like myself that Max felt the need to ax it after just two seasons warms my heart so much more.”
“They have a lot of stuff to cancel,” Ramirez added, “I can see how a show can slip through the cracks now and then.”
At press time, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav was deciding which episodes of “The Sopranos” to delete from the Max servers in honor of the show’s 25th anniversary.
