Hannah Waddingham's comedy Ride Or Die is cancelled despite rave reviews as writer Katy Brand leads furious fan response and claims 'misogynistic men tell me to take menopause jokes out of scripts'

Hannah Waddingham's spy comedy series Ride Or Die has not been renewed by Prime Video for a second series, despite rave reviews and hit ratings.

Reviews praised the electric chemistry between the two lead stars, Hannah, 52, and Octavia Spencer, 56, when the series, created by Tessa Coates, dropped in July.

Globally, the show was the number one most watched Prime Video original series for its first three weeks, whilst it holds a 96 per cent score with critics on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes and 85 per cent with audiences. 

All of that wasn't enough to satisfy Prime executives though, as Deadline report that Paramount Television Studios, the lead studio behind the comedy, is now shopping the series to other buyers.

The report says reasons for the cancellation are 'murky but the show’s focus on middle-aged women may have been a factor'.

Deadline's editor-in-chief Nellie Andreeva adds: 'I hear that that demographic is not very desirable for Amazon executives as a lot of middle-aged women already have Amazon Prime for shopping, so a show targeting them would not bring new subscribers.'

Furious fans have flooded social media as they beg other streamers to pick up the show, whilst comedian and writer Katy Brand has admitted she isn't 'surprised' by the decision. 

Brand, 47, is well-versed in penning scripts for the middle-aged woman demographic, having written the screenplays for Netflix's adaptation of the elderly amateur sleuth comedy The Thursday Murder Club and Emma Thompson's 2022 movie Good Luck to You, Leo Grande.

Posting on Instagram, Brand said 'it doesn't surprise me that 'Ride or Die' has been cancelled after one season even though it was a HUGE hit'.

'The level of misogyny in the film and tv business is out of control. There was a brief period about 10 years ago when it felt like it was improving, but it is now worse than ever. You don't have to believe me; the statistics are there.'

'My advice to women is to try to by-pass the whole system. I still have meetings with deeply mediocre men with a fraction of my writing experience who try to teach me how to write and if I don't listen obediently, I lose the job,' the writer continued.

'I get told to take menopause jokes out of scripts because they don't like the word. I get told the female characters are too funny. No. We have to make our own way. Use whatever you have available to get your work out there.'

Ride or Die stars Hannah and Octavia as long-time best friends Judith Burton and Debbie Claybourne, whose lives are upended when a botched hit reveals that Judith (played by Hannah) is actually a secret international assassin. 

Two weeks after its July debut, the eight-episode series led all original shows across streaming services for the week of July 17 to July 23 with an estimated 1.6 billion minutes watched, Variety reported at the time. 

In the US, within just two days of release, it had close to a million views – twice as many as Prime Video’s heavily promoted Legally Blonde prequel Elle, and almost four times as much as its teen ice hockey romance Off Campus.

The Telegraph awarded the show four stars and said 'larger-than-life Waddingham, her charisma and energy power the whole adventure.'

The Guardian told its readers to 'get Waddinghamed' in their glowing four-star review. 

They praised it as a 'perimenopausal comedy thriller caper of your dreams' as they wrote: 'It is a mark of Ride Or Die’s success that you don’t realise until it’s over how unusual it is. Two fifty-something actors playing fifty-something parts that allow them to be funny, dramatic action heroes?

The Wall Street Journal called the series 'compelling'. They said: 'Waddingham has actorly chops but also the physical attributes to be both a perfectly plausible thumper of bad guys and the proverbial bombshell when the situation demands. She is also, as “Ted Lasso” fans know, very funny.

Season one of the show ended with a string of major cliffhangers, with disappointed fans asking if they will ever get to see what happens next. 

'Terrible. This is why I rarely even look at shows anymore. But this was so good! I wanted more. But I guess I’ll stick to movies. The idea of series seems dead,' posted one fan on X.

'Good Grief!! It was hilarious AND scary!! Best combination!!' agreed another.

'It doesn‘t even make sense to get into a series at this point because successful or not, these executive are just gonna cancel it anyway!'