A new show captures your attention, the characters steal your heart, and then out of nowhere… the show gets canceled. It's a familiar anguish. Nowadays, a seemingly endless number of shows on services like Netflix and Hulu haven’t made it past a single season, even many with strong fan followings (as evidenced by an outcry online when some shows have met the chopping block)
Adding insult to injury, it seems many of the shows unable to garner momentum for multiple seasons are those made for and by underrepresented people. This list highlights five such shows, each of which featured a queer female lead, as well as BIPOC leads. These characters are rarities in and of themselves, but especially as multi-dimensional heroes of their own stories.
Each of these shows takes an intersectional, honest look at what it means to be a queer woman, making unique and valuable contributions to the growing library of queer stories. As we mourn these shows gone too soon, let us also see them as the firsts of many more stories that so deserve to be seen.
Everything Sucks!
2018, Netflix, 1 season, 10 episodes
Created by: Ben York Jones and Michael Mohan
Nineties nostalgia abounds in this sweet series set in Boring, Oregon. Freshman Luke (Jahi Di’Allo Winston) falls hard for the principal’s daughter Kate (Peyton Kennedy), but Kate already has her sights on someone else: the enigmatic drama club star Emaline (Sydney Sweeney).
The show subtly incorporates key LGBTQ+ rights issues of the nineties, like the Defense of Marriage Act and the ongoing AIDS crisis, showing modern teens how far the community has come in just a few decades. While Everything Sucks! tells a coming out story, it’s not about Kate’s journey to acceptance from others, but a celebration of her coming to accept herself (helped in part by attending her first Tori Amos concert, one of the series’ most charming scenes).
The Bisexual
2018, Channel 4 and Hulu,1 season, 6 episodes
Created by: Desiree Akhavan and Rowan Riley
It is a dagger in the heart that there are only six episodes, but the show makes an invaluable contribution within that limited space. Where there are a plethora of shows and movies that limit the queer experience to a clear-cut coming out story, Leila (Akhavan) is on a different journey.
Having been living as a lesbian for years, Leila breaks off her relationship with long-term girlfriend Sadie (Maxine Peake) to explore her newly discovered bisexuality. The tensions this creates for Leila in her new relationships with men, as well as in her friendships primarily with lesbian women. The Bisexual depicts modern queer identity as much more complex than gay/straight, out/in.
High Fidelity
2020, Hulu, 1 season, 10 episodes
Created by: Sarah Kucserka and Veronica West
Inspired by the 2000 film of the same name, High Fidelity follows unlucky-in-love Rob (Zoë Kravitz) as she counts down her top five heartbreaks. Rob is a valuable (and uncommon) queer character in that she has no coming out story to speak of, and at no point defines her sexuality clearly.
As she presents her top five heartbreaks we learn of one who was female, the rest male. While Rob’s sapphic relationship is not the primary storyline, it’s actually the lack of attention, the total ordinariness with which Rob’s relationship with a woman is presented alongside her relationships with men, that make this show feel true-to-life for modern queer women whose lives don’t revolve around “coming out.”
I Am Not Okay with This
2020, Netflix, 1 season, 7 episodes
Created by: Jonathan Entwistle, Christy Hall
Sarcastic, smart-as-a-whip Sydney (Sophia Lillis) isn’t having the greatest high school experience. Her father recently committed suicide, her best friend Dina (Sofia Bryant) is dating a jerky jock, and things really start spiraling when Sydney starts showing signs of something her peers just can’t relate to: superpowers.
Set in a small town of many small-minded people, this show is a light for the LGBTQ+ community at large, but especially teens working to find themselves while growing up without many (or any) people they can relate to. Though the season ends on a devastating cliffhanger, cutting Sydney’s journey far too short, her development over just seven episodes is still absolutely worth the watch.
Gentefied
2020-21, Netflix, 2 seasons, 18 episodes
Created by: Linda Yvette Chávez, Marvin Lemus, produced by America Ferrera
Unlike the other television shows on this list, Gentefied did get a second season, but fans were still gutted when showrunners announced in January that Netflix had canceled the show. Gentefied offered a rare look at the lives of first- and second-generation Mexican Americans not commonly seen on television, and the show’s queer women were so much more than side characters or plot devices.
The relationship between artist Ana (Karrie Martin Lachney) and community organizer Yessika (Julissa Calderon) in particular captured the nuances of navigating intersectional identities and served as a “queer brown love bomb” the audience deserved more of.