‘Clean Slate,' the first sitcom to star a transgender actor, is canceled after one season
Amid a background of openly anti-transgender legislation and policies in American politics, the first ever sitcom starring a transgender performer and the last project from legendary progressive producer Norman Lear has been canceled.
'Clean Slate,' which premiered Feb. 6 on Prime Video, will end after season one. The news was revealed in an emotional guest column posted on Deadline on Friday, April 18, co-written by series star and transgender actor Laverne Cox, comedian and co-star George Wallace and co-creator Dan Ewen.
'We will push to keep the story alive, for the sake of the kind of people portrayed in it, the kind of people being legislated out of existence, or erased from history books,' the column said. 'It feels like it's time to fight like hell for nice things.'
While Prime Video has not publicly revealed why it's scrapping the show, the streaming service is a division of Amazon, owned by Jeff Bezos, who has become a prominent donor and supporter of President Donald Trump's second term. In the president's first quarter, Trump has issued executive orders targeting transgender people, including barring trans athletes from playing in women's sports, and his administration has erased the mention of transgender people on government websites and passports.
'Clean Slate' stars Wallace as Harry, an Alabama car wash owner, who is surprised when his estranged son returns home after 17 years. Harry's child is now a proud trans woman named Desiree (Cox).
Lear, known for progressive sitcoms such as 'All in the Family,' 'The Jeffersons' and 'Sanford and Son' that changed the face of television in the 1970s, signed on after Cox, Wallace and Ewen pitched the TV legend in the late 2010s. Together, they shepherded the project through a pandemic, Hollywood strikes and shifting broadcast partners.
It was originally set up at Peacock before moving first to Amazon-owned Freevee before finally airing on Prime.
What would be the only season had been entirely filmed by the time Lear died at age 101 in December 2023.
'Let it be known that Norman Lear's final comedy room was an intersectional, authentic thing of beauty, and the stuff of Marjorie Taylor Greene's nightmares,' the column said.
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