After two seasons, Netflix has cancelled Insatiable. The second season of the teen drama – based on a 2014 New York Times article by Jeff Chu – premiered on the streaming service on October 11, 2019. While season 2 hasn’t generated a score on review website Rotten Tomatoes yet, the first season of the show earned an abysmal 13 percent approval rating, making its eventual ending a quick inevitability.
Insatiable starred Debby Ryan as Patty Bladell, a teenager who is bullied because of her weight until she goes on a liquid diet and becomes thin. She decides to seek revenge on her bullies while also becoming a beauty pageant queen. The series also starred Dallas Roberts as Bob Armstrong, a beauty pageant coach, and Alyssa Milano in her first major television role since leaving ABC’s Mistresses after season 2 in 2014.
TV Line confirmed the cancellation of Insatiable on Friday. The Lauren Gussis-created show originally debuted a 12-episode first season on the streaming service on August 10, 2018, and was renewed for a second season the following month. The order for season 2, however, was cut down by a couple episodes, down to ten. Additionally, the marketing push that existed for season 1 wasn’t applied for season 2, suggesting Netflix already knew how they felt about the show’s future.
The cancellation also shouldn’t serve as much of a surprise because Milano, for one, was already discussing the end of Insatiable on social media. Earlier this month, Milano responded to a question on Twitter about the show’s third season by stating it would not be back, to her disappointment. Since the news of the cancellation broke, Milano has taken to Twitter once more to express her sadness. See Milano’s reaction to the show’s cancellation below:
The controversy around the first season of Insatiable was surprisingly not enough to doom it from the start. Many people thought the concept of the show was offensive and full of fat-shaming. Some people even signed a petition to prevent the show from ever premiering, although that proved to be unsuccessful, with Gussis defending the show as being at least slightly autobiographical. Nevertheless, the show struggled to recover from the negative press that accompanied its beginnings. Fans will surely be disappointed, as there were many questions left unanswered by the end of season 2, questions a third season of the show almost definitely would’ve addressed. But at the end of the day, Netflix’s appetite for non-prestige programs like Insatiable is proving to be very little.