Our Flag Means Death officially abandons ship
After failing to find a new home for the show since its cancelation on Max, creator David Jenkins has declared "the end of the road"
Aux News Our Flag Means Death
Well, shipmates, we’re so sorry to be the bearers of bad news, but Our Flag Means Death has reached its final resting place in Davy Jones’ Locker. “I can officially confirm that we’ve reached the end of the road. At least as far as this sweet show is concerned,” creator David Jenkins wrote in an Instagram post along with some behind-the-scenes photos today.
Earlier this year, Max took a swipe across The Revenge’s bow by canceling the cult-hit pirate show after two successful seasons, inspiring both angry fans and Jenkins himself to spring into action to find the show a new network to plunder.
But their attempts were sadly unsuccessful. “After many complimentary meetings, conversations, etc it seems there is no alternate home for our crew,” Jenkins continued. “Thank you to all of you who sent us out with tremendous love and care. Your campaign was noticed across the industry. But more importantly it made all of us who worked on this show better able to deal with the loss.”
While it is certainly not unheard of for a canceled show to be picked up elsewhere, especially as networks notice the fervent outcry to an announcement like this, it sounds like Jenkins is really just ready to leave campaigning in his wake and get back to creating. “To you wonderful fans: thank you. You are lovely and earnest. Those kinds of things feel in short supply at times. But they aren’t. A love like ours can’t disappear in an instant,” he wrote. “When we see each other off in mystic, say hello. We won’t say goodbye, because we’re not leaving. We’re just taking a breather until next time we can share something together.”
So, that’s that. Ed and Stede will never grace our screens again. But as we watch that ship sail off into the distance, we’ll always have the season two finale, which A.V. Club reviewer Jenna Scherer called “a beautiful, bittersweet note for the series to go out on.” Bon voyage, Our Flag Means Death.
52 Comments
I’m bummed, but Season Two functions as a perfectly good ending, so I’m grateful for what we got.
I’m kinda surprised nobody picked it up, I was under the impression that it was pretty popular.
I was under the same impression…it was fun while it lasted! Bummer though, so many shows I’ve been into have gotten the axe.
I bet it was fucking expensive. I was watching the boat scenes in Shogun and they looked so cheap compared to OFMD.
That’s probably a good point, yeah.
Popular, yes. But also expensive. Max slashed the budget for the second season by 40%. A third season would probably have been slashed more.
I can believe that.
With respect, does that impression come from reading people talk about it on the internet? Because that is a bubble. Most of my friends who aren’t very online had no idea this show existed, which I think is probably indicative of the broader problem.
No, pretty much everyone I know IRL watched and loved it.
Meh. I have friends who host a huge 30-40 person Int’l Talk Like a Pirate day party every year for over a decade who haven’t heard of this show.It wasn’t that popular. In general HBO stuff is never as widely popular as the people who watch it seem to think it is.Waaaaay more people know and watch NCIS:[Insert City name] than any show on HBO.
That’s crazy, do they not go online at all? Did you tell them about OFMD?
Well yeah of course ‘waaaay’ more people know about NCIS, it and its spinoffs have been on network TV for over 20 years now. Not many people don’t know the story of Freddy Shoop going from teaching summer school to a long and storied career in the Navy. If nothing else, it’s famous for teaching everyone that when it comes to cybersecurity, 2 people working a keyboard are better than one!
If you don’t end every season on a deeply satisfying note, you are just plain irresponsible as a writer.
100% It’s fine to leave some things unresolved at the end of a season but you gotta have resolutions and tie up the main storylines.
You can do that when you have an order for another season in your hands.
Season orders get revoked and studios break their word. Until the show is literally on the air, there are no guarantees. So you may as well just write the story you want to write and hope for the best.
I don’t know how true it is, but I’ve heard that writers like cliffhanger season finales because it makes producers slightly more reluctant to cancel the series before the cliffhanger is resolved.
No you don’t.
We’ve been spoiled as audiences with some really well written and cleverly produced TV series. However, they are the exception to the rule. Making a TV show is typically a mess of ideas and compromises. Most showrunners and writers are making it all up as they go along, so it’s a miracle if the threads from the start actually tie up neatly at the end.
So true. It really is a miracle for a show to be ‘satisfying’ from beginning to finish. Guess I’m thinking of “Buffy”. It wasn’t perfect, although we have more insight since all of the news about Whedon surfaced. And it’s interesting because so few of the episodes were written by the same people. That’s one way to keep it fresh, I suppose. The show just attracted a lot of solid talent.
Too many shows I love never did that for me to give a shit about “responsibility”
Yeah, fuck those cliffhanger episodes! Who needs “The Best of Both Worlds” or “Michael’s Gambit” or “A House Divided” or “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” or “Gliding Over All”?
I’m impressed if a writer can just make an episode satisfying. If you’re expecting a whole season to end well then you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment.
Actually, forget every season, every EPISODE should end that way, just in case the head writer or main actor are struck by lightning before they can make more. TV should never take risks or try out new ideas, it’s irresponsible!
Just to be safe, no show should ever have a continuing plot, and every episode should end with everything going back to how it was at the start, and then right before the credits the wacky grandma character (these are mandatory now) should say a swear word. And every show should have a laugh track, including dramas. Also, you should win things by watching!
I dunno, having a whole episode where things aren’t completely resolved by every commercial break runs the risk of the apocalypse happening, and preventing you from seeing how the story plays out by the end of the episode.To be extra safe, we probably shouldn’t even have individual scenes that leave anything hanging. Every scene should end with a nice solid conclusion. Or how about every line of dialogue?
This is weirdly passive-aggressive. TV has evolved in response to new developments in the media landscape and viewing habits. TiVo and streaming enabled binge-watching, which allowed serialized storytelling to eclipse episodic storytelling as the norm for TV. Now in 2024, the streaming money spigot is being turned down, and even popular shows are struggling to get more than four seasons. I’m skeptical of how prevalent this is, but some viewers claim that they refuse to start new shows because they don’t have faith that the writers will be allowed to “finish their story” before the network cancels them. Given this, plus the new normal of entire seasons of TV being mostly finished before episodes begin airing/streaming, it doesn’t seem irrational to me to ask for writers to adapt and craft individual seasons like self-contained movies. Something like Jack Reacher springs to mind, which wraps up the main storylines every season while leaving the door clearly open for more adventures.The alternative would be for viewers to not throw a hissy fit every time a show gets cancelled and suggest that the network is obligated to let the writers finish a story they’re making up as they go along, and we all know that’s not going to happen.#HannibalSeason4
“blah blah blah literally the only reason anyone should ever want to come back to a show is that the writers decided not to write a full story to make sure they came back to the show I am smart I am smart here look at my satirical satire I am smart.”
Who would have thought a show aimed at 7% of the population would struggle to find an audience?
I’m glad it meant something to a lot of people, but I never got as into it. I thought it was be more of a comedy and while there were jokes, they weren’t always making me laugh. And in season two, I think there was just too many characters involved and nobody but Steede and Blackbeard were getting anything.
I enjoyed most of it and it had a delightful cast, but how exactly are we defining successful seasons here? Did they ever release numbers of any kind?
Of course not. All this chatter about how popular the show really was? None of us have any fucking data.
Wrong.https://www.thewrap.com/top-new-shows-hbo-max-our-flag-means-death/
We know that the show was highly popular in its first season. I don’t think Max released numbers for season two, though, but given WB’s habit of killing everything that isn’t Game of Thrones-related these days, that may not say anything negative about its numbers.
https://www.parrotanalytics.com/insights/our-flag-means-death-flies-high-rivals-euphoria-and-peacemaker-in-tv-demand/
Ok, fair enough, although that’s just comparing HBO MAX shows, it looks like, and… relative to each other, rather than with any kind of absolute metrics (like total number of viewers or whatever). Plus, as you said, only the first season.Still, given the existence of Emperor Zaslav, who knows.
Ive made my peace with this show before and won’t repeat myself on that front. I’m kind of at a point where I don’t see Taika as a plus.Nicest thing I’ll say about the series, is that its not the most miserable pirate related content released lately. That would be anything Rebecca Simon writes. I would say Skull and Bones treating piracy as a Marcus Rediker wet dream of equality and democracy would rank higher, but who the hell bought that game anyway. There’s so many good story ideas for pirate shows and films. Its a shame the output is, something every couple years that’s frequently mediocre.
Ive made my peace with this show before and won’t repeat myself on that front.
Thank you.
Nicest thing I’ll say about the series,
Oh, here they go again.. 😉
Cannot help it. I had such high expectations because the historical figure Stede Bonnet is genuinely great fodder for a dark comedy. It just doesn’t work as well for a genuine romance story, since both figures were criminal outlaws who actively enslaved people. My brain cannot disconnect this fact. It just keeps reminding me of old 1930s Hollywood westerns where people like Jesse James are lionized. Recent stuff keeps doing this. Skull and Bones made the mutineer and mass rapist Henry Every into a freedom loving hero. People rightfully called out the Lost Cause myth for this nonsense, this is similar.Sorry, I just can’t discuss this damn series without ranting.
We know. 😛
Well, I think a lot of historians are like this. Watching a western with a friend in New Mexico who studied violence in the South West is basically just, that’s wrong that’s wrong this is a simplification etc. We just aren’t fun to be around our favorite subjects. I imagine train fans are like this too.
Hey, you made some good points.
But sometimes (oftentimes?) a series just isn’t what you wanted. Happens to me all the time. So I just watch a few episodes and see if it’s interesting or entertaining in its own right. OFMD was. Taika, Rhys, and co still are. Just because I’m a geek of a bunch of different subjects doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate related works of fiction, even when they get some facts wrong. Singin’ In The Rain is still a great movie, even if Cosmo Brown didn’t actually invent lip syncing.
I have a problem with any human who doesn’t love Singing in the Rain.
Yes, you can. Unless you are a toddler, which brings up a different set of issues. Why people don’t just say “I wanna rant, here goes”?
OK…look, I am commiserating here but…it was made by Taika Waititi. Who is, indeed, beginning to get on my tits.
Personally I’ve always enjoyed the sharing of your historical knowledge almost as much as the reviews of the show.
WILLIAM DAMPIER MINISERIES WHEN?!
Oh fuck you for threatening me with a good time.I love that silly fucker. A privateer literally more obsessed with smelling the roses and going around the world, who accidentally created and rescued Robinson Crusoe. Dampier is such a fun historical figure.
Oh, not just created Robinson Crusoe – he fucking inspired Gulliver’s Travels. He’s literally half-scientist, half-pirate. He’s like an 18th-century Buckaroo Banzai. And he was…kinda a mediocre pirate/privateer (delete where and when applicable) whose biggest enemy was…shipworms.And he died, at home, in England, two thousand pounds in 18th-century money in the red. Legend. Mate, if I were able to dicksuck the right people in the Aussie media industry, I’d do it. Metaphorically, of course. Those people are mostly dickless. The Alexander Selkirk reunion would be absolute gold.
“Soooooooooooooo, Bill…can’t help but notice you’re not picking me up in the St. George.”“Shut up.”“Or the Cinque Ports, come to think of it-”“SHUT. UP.”“Where is Stradling, anyway?”“DO YOU WANT ME TO PUT YOU BACK ON THAT FUCKING ISLAND?” Ruth Park did do a radio play about him seventy years ago:
I’m just going to leave this here:
It just wasn’t that funny.
I’m feeling guilty I failed to notice Season 2 was released until now.
good riddance.
Your Flag Means Cancelled.
I recall a show from 2006 that was a funny workplace comedy and suddenly the whole tone shifted to a relationship driven bore-fest. I had high hopes with this cast and the premise.
Enjoyed it a lot. It had a compelling ending. Goodbye.