My Show Bria Mack Gets A Life Was Critically Acclaimed & Still Got Canceled. Now What?

Mara Brock Akil. Shonda Rhimes. Issa Rae. Michaela Coel. Sasha Leigh Henry. 

When I was in development for my original comedy series, Bria Mack Gets A Life, I would repeat these names to myself as a mantra, keeping my goal front and center. Mara, Shonda, Issa, Michaela, and me. Throughout my development journey, right up until I got the call that we had been greenlit, I kept these names in my head. Bria Mack Gets A Life would be my very first TV child and as it was going into production, I knew   how rare of an opportunity it is as a Canadian creator to get to make a Black — with a capital ‘B’ — comedy series about a young, Jamaica-Canadian woman navigating life and the job market in the sea of whiteness that is the corporate world. 

Likening myself to the Mount Rushmore of Black female creators dominating the TV space was less about feeding my ego (though, that was definitely part of it) and more about the idea that I would get to do what they did: introduce Black women on screen in a way that felt hilarious, real, at times raw, and undoubtedly groundbreaking in their eras. For far too long I had seen Black people be the sidekick, comedic relief, or simply nonexistent in Canadian media, and don’t even get me started on the limited and at times straight-up bad portrayals of Jamaican immigrants in film and TV across the globe. When Bria Mack was greenlit, I was given an opportunity I knew I could not waste. 

And I didn’t. 

From getting greenlit to production to the release of the show, my team and I created a 6-episode season that not only authentically represented the lived experience of a burnt-out young Black woman trying to live up to the expectations of her immigrant Jamaican mother, but it also pushed the boundary of what comedy could look like in the TV landscape. Our first season is fresh, bold, and most importantly, it’s fucking funny. I mean, my main character has an imaginary hype girl named Black Attack — need I say more? 

We knew the show was ambitious for the budget and time we had, but we were down for the challenge. We committed to making noise with the show however we could. When it came to marketing, we pulled out all the stops. We debuted the first three episodes as a part of the Toronto International Film Festival’s primetime program to much critical acclaim, and hosted a live variety sketch show with the cast, crew, and a few of our favorite comedians from the city ahead of the premiere to get people excited. 

Then came the release. Bria Mack Gets A Life premiered on Friday, October 13th, (which despite coming from a very strong “we nuh inna nuh obeah” Jamaican family, the date didn’t bump for me too much) and it premiered to rave reviews. All kinds of folks told me about how relatable the show felt, and that they had a friend, sister, or cousin just like Bria. People told me they had worked at jobs like the one Bria gets scammed by. They, too, were well-versed in the art of code-switching from their native accents to a more “professional” Westernized speaking tone. They had co-workers, old schoolmates, neighbors, and friends just like the ever-annoying “I got you, girl” white ally in the show’s foil character, Gemma. Simply put, people loved it and —  most importantly to me —  Black women loved it. I always said that the show was for everyone to enjoy, but that it was for Black women first. If my girls watched it and didn’t feel seen then I didn’t care who else was laughing and loving it. If Black women don’t get it then I will not have done my job. But they did. They got it and they felt seen by it and they felt proud of it. 

To top it all off, we earned five nominations at the Canadian Screen Awards (CSAs) for writing, directing, editing, and production design, and ultimately took home the win for Best Comedy Series, beating out heavyweight shows like Workin’ Moms for its final season. Needless to say, it really felt like we came, we saw, we conquered. 

And then we got canceled. A few weeks before the Canadian film and TV industry’s biggest night, I got confirmation from the show’s executive producer, Mark Montefiore, that the network had decided not to renew the show. 

I got word from the network that the show wasn’t performing as well as they had hoped. This was shortly after the CSA nominations but a couple months before the ceremony. Everywhere I looked, it seemed like everyone was talking about and watching the show but how many views does my “everyone” translate to for a prominent but niche national streamer still trying to expand their audience themselves? Well, apparently, not enough. 

The word of the day in the industry seems to be ‘discoverable’. Executives are constantly asking, “is this discoverable?” which  basically means “is there already a built-in audience?” This is not a new concept but the requirement seems to be stricter now more than ever. “Discoverable” is now the catch-all phrase for the things studios and networks seem to be after to “guarantee” a project’s success. This could be by way of existing IP in a book, article, a saga like Reesa Teesa’s, or by attaching big name stars either as stunt cast or in the lead. All of those things come with a seemingly established audience, which is why there are a hundred Fast & The Furious movies and every toy of our childhoods is getting their own franchise. 

Bria Mack Gets A Life didn’t have any of that. It wasn’t based on anything other than my own life. Our two leads are relatively unknown. And the only video I’d ever had go “viral” at the time was a repost of a clip of Shenehneh from Martin wishing the gang a Happy Kwanza. There are a lot of reasons that a show with critical success might not get renewed. The industry is still reeling post lockdowns, post-streaming wars, post-economic downturn, post-strike, post post post… so, that leaves tighter bottom lines (unless you’re Robert Downey Jr.)  and less wiggle room than ever to give a show like Bria a fighting chance. From a business perspective, it’s an understandable decision; they gotta move on to what makes money, and with a recession looming they have to move on fast, but, in this climate, the growing concern is that the approach leaves little room for original and new ideas from new creators like me — specifically Black creators — to blossom. 

Listen, I know it’s show business.  This industry has never been for the faint of heart and it surely isn’t showing signs of being more compassionate now. So I’m happy to join the ranks of the many brilliant creators who went on to do many great things after their single-season debuts. We’ve seen so many brilliant Black shows get canceled recently. Rap Sh!t, South Side, The Wonder Years, Grand Crew, just to name a few. It’s hard not to wonder why our shows don’t get the time to grow an audience. Why aren’t our original ideas invested in? I’m grateful that Bria Mack Gets A Life exists, but if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear, does it make a sound? 

In debriefing the news with our producing team, this was the question, our biggest disappointment remained that more people hadn’t even gotten the chance to see the first season. When we looked at our social media metrics some of our biggest engagement came from places like New York, London, and as far as Accra, and Nairobi. It confirmed for the team what we knew to be true: there is an audience hungry for the show but we were locked in to a country-specific streamer, and it felt like there weren’t many other options than for it to slip into oblivion. Now, the show only serves as a great sample of the kind of work I want to make in meetings with other network executives for future shows. 

In a lot of ways the streaming boom opened up avenues for Black and diverse creators that the industry hadn’t seen before, but with geotagging creating digital borders so much of that content remains hidden behind a subscription, a paywall, or even a VPN. And the reality is that everything plaguing the industry right now is impacting the average consumer and audience member. Budgets are tight on the home front too and subscription fatigue is hitting folks en masse. 

We spent a lot of time pursuing different options for how to keep the show alive for a second season to gain a bigger audience, but it was a puzzle that never quite came together. Then, a simple and obvious idea came to mind. If the goal was less about securing a second season and more about getting the show in front of a larger  audience then the question became,  “What if we just release it online — for free?” 

The more I thought about it, the more it felt like the right decision. A globally accessible online space is how I discovered new Black voices in the 2010s in the Black-led TV lull after Girlfriends and Half and Half were off the air, before Insecure became the HBO juggernaut we now know it to be. It’s how I discovered the likes of Cecile Emeke’s early work Ackee and Saltfish, Jeanine Daniel’s That Guy (starring a young Will Catlett), and Numa Perrier’s Becoming Nia. And hopefully, it will be how you can now discover not only me, but the likes of Malaika Hennie-Hamadi who plays the titular character Bria Mack, Hannan Younis who plays her imaginary confidant Black Attack, Leslie Adam who plays Bria’s Jamaican immigrant mother Marie, and Manuel Rodriguez-Saenz who plays Marie’s younger, Cuban boyfriend Rodrigo along with many talented people in front of and behind the camera. 

With or without a mainstream co-sign, in every lifetime, Black artists —Black people — have always found ways to share our stories, so deciding to release Bria Mack Gets A Life online is just following ancestral tradition: finding a way forward when there seems to be none. This decision is hardly a grand, revolutionary act, but cutting out the middleman and giving the show directly to the people (before it’s wiped off the internet for tax reasons) does feel like its own quiet little rebellion. I’ve always been the kind of girl to go after what I want boldly. I mean, you really don’t get a show made in this industry without an attitude like that. And what I want, more than anything, is for Bria Mack Gets A Life to meet its audience. To meet you. To hopefully inspire you, remind you of your own journeys, obstacles, and victories, and above all else, make you laugh. So please, watch, like, and share at your leisure. Bria Mack Gets A Life was made for us, by us. We may have only got one season but I’m very proud and excited to share it with you, after all, I made it with us in mind. You can watch all 6 episodes of Bria Mack Gets A Life for free, here.