The groundbreaking, Emmy and Peabody award-winning drama that changed what representation can look like, POSE will come to an end with its previously announced third season.
“Write the TV show you want to watch! That’s what I was told in 2014 while completing my MFA in screenwriting,” showrunner Steven Canals tweeted. “At the time we weren’t seeing very many Black and Latinx characters — that happened to also be LGBTQ+ — populating screens. And so I wrote the first draft of a pilot the ‘younger me’ deserved. Pose was conceived as a love letter to the underground New York ballroom community, to my beloved New York, to my queer and trans family, to myself. I, along with my incredible collaborators, never intended on changing the TV landscape. I simply wanted to tell an honest story about family, resilience and love. How fortunate am I to have done that for three seasons.”
Canals was the co-creator, along with Ryan Murphy; while Murphy is heading to Netflix in a overall deal (POSE was his last Disney backed 20th Television show), Canals has inked his own deal at Disney, signed his own pact with 20th Television, and is already prepping another LGBTQ-themed series for FX.
POSE came at a time when audiences were rallying for more representation from marginalized communities, and the series delivered while also being authentic, entertaining, and emotional. It featured a record number of trans characters portrayed by trans actors, an issue that trans actors have been vocal about for years. The cast also includes Broadway star Billy Porter, who is the first openly gay man to win the lead actor Emmy, and Janet Mock ranking as the first trans woman of color hired as a writer on a TV series, as well as the first transgender woman of color to write and direct a TV episode.
The critically acclaimed drama also includes the largest recurring cast of LGBTQ actors ever for a scripted series: MJ Rodriguez, Porter, Michaela Jaé, Dominique Jackson, Indya Moore and Hailie Sahar star Dyllón Burnside, Angel Bismark Curiel, Sandra Bernhard, and Jason A. Rodriguez.
It’s a bittersweet farewell, but while POSE was the first, I hope they won’t be the last.
POSE returns on May 2 with the first two of its seven-episode final season.