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Fans Of 'Take My Wife' Are Rallying On Twitter To Save The Show
Last year, married comedians Cameron Esposito and Rhea Butcher pulled off a rare feat with the first season of their sitcom Take My Wife: telling an authentic story about their marriage in a TV landscape that still underserves LGBTQ+ characters. Now, Comcast and NBCUniversal’s streaming service Seeso is shutting down and leaving Season 2 of Take My Wife without a place to air, and fans are rallying to find the show a new home.
Showrunners Esposito and Butcher have already completed the second season of their critically acclaimed sitcom, which chronicles the ups, downs and in-betweens of a marriage between two comedians (played by Esposito and Butcher, and bearing their same names.) Nevertheless, Butcher explained to Vanity Fair that she and Esposito do not own the rights to Take My Wife's second season, saying "If it doesn’t find a new home, we can’t release it ourselves.”
The #TakeMyWife hashtag has been trending on Twitter ever since Seeso announced it would shut down on August 9, with fans lobbying streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu to air the show's second season.
A tweet from Esposito detailing the show's commitment to onscreen and behind-the-scenes diversity quickly went viral; in the tweet, Esposito points out that all of Take My Wife's writers were female and nearly half were women of color, noting, "Changing the power dynamics in television can be done."
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Wanted to tell u what having a show on Seeso allowed us to do. I am so proud of #TakeMyWife. pic.twitter.com/UatqOyrPY7
— Cameron Esposito (@cameronesposito) August 9, 2017
In an industry that still struggles with diversity and inclusion at all levels of production, it's more important than ever for a show like Take My Wife—whose second season cast was comprised 54% of LGBTQ+ actors, according to Esposito—to survive. Hopefully, the #TakeMyWife campaign will inspire some platform to let the show's second season be seen.
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