Hulu Cancels Not Suitable for Work on Its Own Cliffhanger

Hulu canceled Mindy Kaling’s Not Suitable for Work on Aug. 24, two months after a nine-episode first season. Variety broke the news. Warner Bros. Television, which made the comedy, plans to shop it.

The finale left Josh watching his best friend kiss the woman he had just started to want. She had built the whole season backward from that hallway, and Hulu made it the last image of the series.

She Built the Whole Season Backward From a Hallway

Kaling told TVLine in June that the last frames were locked before she even knew the rest of season 1. She was still on the pilot, two years out, and already had Josh walking that corridor.

I really wanted the last image of Season 1 to be him seeing his best friend who he loves kissing the girl of his dreams, which is someone that he has complicated feelings about.

Mindy Kaling, creator, TVLine, June 2026

She told the site they worked backwards from that beat, and that she already knew it when she was hiring staff, which she said does not happen that often. The closer, “A Birthday Party for the Whole World,” puts the kiss on New Year’s Eve after Davis admits he stood up for AJ because he likes her. Josh had been on his way to spend the night with her. He sees them. That is the cut.

Showrunner Charlie Grandy told TheWrap the mess was the point. He said Kaling wrote the pilot wanting it to run for 10 seasons, with room for standalone episodes and new people, as long as viewers still wanted the building. In June she told Deadline the writers room was already up for season 2 and that she was keeping her fingers crossed for an official pickup.

Hulu did not give her one. Deadline noted the two-part finish also left smaller threads hanging: both apartments in love triangles, and AJ and Davis’s jobs shaky after they went at their boss, Bill Gibson.

Hulu’s Charts Called It a Hit Anyway

On paper the show looked like the thing a streamer renews. After the first three episodes on June 2, it rose from No. 4 to No. 1 on Hulu’s Top 15 Today list the next day, per Wikipedia’s recap of those rankings, and it stayed on that board from premiere through July 9.

HULU’S OWN SCOREBOARD

• Hulu Top 15: Hit No. 1 the day after premiere and remained listed through July 9, more than two weeks past the June 23 finale.
• TVision: Ranked it the eighth most-streamed series in the United States through June 2026, using the firm’s Power Score across more than 1,000 apps.
• FlixPatrol: Called it the second most-watched series on Disney+ worldwide after launch, and No. 1 in Australia, New Zealand, and Belgium.
• Ted on TV: Variety, citing Ted Linhart’s newsletter, said it averaged 800,000 viewers for the first five episodes after 11 days, among the lowest-rated titles on the service since 2005.

Those figures can sit together. A daily top-15 board measures what is being clicked among the titles Hulu is pushing that week. Linhart’s 800,000, reported only through Variety, is a different kind of count, and it is the number that most closely matches a quiet burial. Deadline’s own verdict in August was that the Warner Bros. comedy was not a breakout, even if it had done “respectable business” and created buzz.

The louder complaint after the axe is simpler than methodology. A hangout show with “good bones” got nine episodes and a locked kiss, then no time to grow into the thing the hallway was built to open. Hulu also recently passed on the YA pilots Buffy: New Sunnydale, Foster Dade, and Don’t Get High, Deadline reported, which puts NSFW in a wider purge of young-adult bets that are hard to sell in a logline.

Craig Erwich Wanted a Sexier Title Than Murray Hill

When Warner Bros. sold the series, it was called Murray Hill, after the Manhattan neighborhood where the five leads live across the hall. Hulu changed it. Kaling told Deadline that Craig Erwich, her Hulu boss and the executive who once moved The Mindy Project over from Fox for three more seasons, wanted people to know this was a funny, sexy Maling show, the way The Sex Lives of College Girls had announced itself. She said she thought Clancy Collins at Warner Bros. floated Not Suitable for Work.

She also admitted the new name outran the show. There is almost no sex in season 1. Asked if season 2 would have to cash the title, she said her comedies still come from a repressed child-of-immigrants streak, and that when she pictured NSFW she pictured roommates talking at dining tables. She would try to “put my money where my mouth is” on the spice, she said, “should we get another season.”

Deadline later called the series the close of a loose life trilogy: Never Have I Ever for high school, The Sex Lives of College Girls for campus, and this one for first jobs in New York. The Mindy Project remains the model hanging over the pickup. That show ran three seasons on Fox, then three more on Hulu after Erwich rescued it. NSFW was her first sole creator credit since that series. It is now her shortest.

Five Roommates, Nine Episodes, Three Love Triangles

The all nine episodes on Hulu still sit there, a complete season that was never meant to be a complete story. Ella Hunt plays AJ Pascarelli, a Boston transplant and first-year analyst at Fisher Stassen. Avantika is her roommate, Abhinaya “Abby” Chilukuri, an assistant to a celebrity stylist. Across the hall are Davis, Josh, and Kel, played by Will Angus, Jack Martin, and Nicholas Duvernay. Jay Ellis is their managing director, Bill.

The official trailer sells the joke Hulu printed on the poster: two women live across the hall from three men. What the episodes actually do is grind first jobs against that setup. AJ and Davis work 80-hour weeks for Bill. Abby answers to Constance Wu’s Vanessa. Kel drops Columbia med school for acting and a substitute gig. Josh, whose father is a media CEO, nepo-babies his way onto an investigative show hosted by Victor Garber’s Wes Dryden.

Guest juice was part of the pitch. Gigi Hadid made her on-screen acting debut in episode 3 as Catherine, Bill’s furious girlfriend, storming his office in a fur coat over pajamas. Kaling told People they had one scene and thought it would be funny if Hadid did it. Ego Nwodim, Judy Gold, Greg Germann, and Harry Richardson also recur. None of that changed the ending Hulu chose.

Why Critics Clocked a Sitcom From Another Era

Reviewers never gave Hulu an easy defense. Rotten Tomatoes posts a 54 percent from 24 reviews, with a 6/10 average, and a critics’ line that it “feels like a sitcom from another era dressed up for a new generation, for better and worse.” Metacritic’s Metascore of 53 out of 100, from 13 critics, lands in mixed-or-average. Deadline said viewers were kinder, at 82 percent on the Popcornmeter. TVLine readers graded the premiere a B-.

WHERE EXPERTS DISAGREE

• The hang: Hollywood Reporter critic Angie Han called it a fun if dated hang and said a solid cast had the chemistry of people you want to sit with.
• The copy: Variety’s Alison Herman labeled it a bland Friends copycat, then allowed “glimmers of a more biting, memorable take” across the nine episodes.
• The tone: Vulture’s Jackson McHenry wrote that the approach came off as naive to the point of maudlin, with Avantika’s styling plots as the strongest run.

Kaling pushed back on one knock that followed every trailer, the idea that entry-level twenty-somethings could not afford those apartments. Two of them are investment bankers, she told Deadline, and Murray Hill is not Tribeca. The question she wanted, she said, was what happens when your friends are also your coworkers, your rivals, and the people you want. That is the show she staffed a second room to keep asking.

Avantika Called the Job the Opportunity of a Lifetime

The people who lose the most hours are the ones Hulu used as the reason to make it. Hunt, Avantika, Angus, Martin, and Duvernay were not a pre-sold film five. Deadline argued the kill will make streamers twitchy about original YA that does not come from a viral book and does not follow the usual romance template.

Kaling answered the news on Instagram with a carousel from set and the street, and a caption that did not fight the decision.

View this post on Instagram

“I love this show, I loved making this show, I love these people, and I love all of you for all your sweet comments, messages, edits and for watching,” she wrote, tagging the series account. Jack Martin reshared it. “I will always love Not Suitable for Work and everyone who was a part of it,” he wrote. “Thank you for watching.”

WHAT THE CAST POSTED

• Kaling: Loved the show, the making of it, the people, and the viewers who sent comments and edits.
• Avantika: Called it “an opportunity of a lifetime” on Instagram Stories and thanked Kaling, Grandy, Hulu, and Warner Bros. for the chance.
• Martin: Said he will always love the series and everyone who was part of it.
• Duvernay: Replied to Kaling’s post with heart emojis, per Deadline.

The argument that followed online was less about craft than about patience. Viewers kept asking how a Murray Hill comedy gets cut while other young-adult shows keep getting room to be awkward for a second year. A few even mailed the joke to New York’s mayor, as if a fictional lease in his borough were a 311 ticket. Avantika left a thank-you on one of those posts. The hallway still ends on the same cut either way.

Warner Bros. Will Shop a Show That Already Lost One Home

Warner Bros. Television is taking the same path it took a year ago with another Kaling comedy. Max canceled The Sex Lives of College Girls after three seasons in March 2025 even after it lived on the streamer’s own top-10 board. The studio shopped it. In April 2025, Warner Bros. TV Group chairman Channing Dungey told Deadline they had come to the end of the road. Running Point, her Netflix series, has already been renewed for season 3. NSFW is the one in the middle, short, and for sale.

FROM PILOT TO PINK SLIP

1. Aug. 28, 2025: Ella Hunt, Avantika, Will Angus, Jack Martin, and Nicholas Duvernay are cast as the leads.
2. Sept. 24, 2025: Jay Ellis joins as a series regular.
3. June 2, 2026: Hulu premieres the first three episodes; the rest land weekly through June 23.
4. June 2026: Kaling says the season 2 writers room is already working, pickup pending.
5. Aug. 24, 2026: Variety reports Hulu will not go to season 2; Warner Bros. TV plans to shop the show.

No new buyer has been named in the days since. The nine episodes remain up. The image she hired a staff to reach remains the last thing the series does.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Many Episodes of Not Suitable for Work Are There?

Season 1 has nine episodes that run 31 to 46 minutes. Hulu released three on premiere day, then two a week, copying a nine-episode pattern Kaling said she took from Danny McBride’s The Righteous Gemstones, including the long pilot.

What Was the Original Title of Not Suitable for Work?

The working title was Murray Hill, the Manhattan neighborhood of the two apartments. Hulu’s Craig Erwich asked for a spicier name in the vein of The Sex Lives of College Girls, and Kaling said she believes Warner Bros. executive Clancy Collins suggested Not Suitable for Work.

Who Directed the Not Suitable for Work Season 1 Finale?

Sara Bareilles directed episode 9, “A Birthday Party for the Whole World,” from a script by showrunner Charlie Grandy. Greg Mottola, who also executive produced, directed the pilot, “Welcome to Murray Hill.”

Is Not Suitable for Work on Disney+ Outside the United States?

Yes. The series streamed on Hulu in the United States and on Disney+ internationally, and FlixPatrol had it at No. 1 on Disney+ in Australia, New Zealand, and Belgium after premiere. Season 1 is still the only season.