As queer characters are everywhere from Empire to Modern Family, there is still nothing that really encapsulates the modern gay experience like Looking did

If you had told me at the end of its first season that HBO gave the boot to Looking, its dramedy about a group of gay thirtysomethings living in San Francisco, I would not have been surprised. It was a bit of a mess, boring at times, staid at others, and so muddled it didn’t know what the message was. Now, when the news of its cancelation comes at the end of season two, I’m a little bit heartbroken that the show is coming to an end. How things can change in a year.

The main reason that I’m sad that it’s leaving, after they film a final movie to wrap the whole series up, is that season two was so much better than its freshman effort. Patrick (Jonathan Groff), though conservative and narcissistic, was a lot less grating and his love triangle between his perfect boss Kevin (the controversial Russell Tovey) and blue-collar Richie (Raúl Castillo) made complete sense. He was caught between what society expected of him in this post-gay age – the perfect marriage to the perfect guy – and what he actually wanted – to find love with someone he never would have expected.

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Things were faring better for the other characters as well. Agustín (Frankie J Alvarez), who was such a prick in the first season, turned out to be not such a bad guy after he got a job at a shelter for homeless gay teens and dealt with the modern intricacies of HIV, PReP, and the post-plague era. Dom (Murray Bartlett), always the sex bomb, not only explored what it’s like to be in an open relationship, but his partnership with “fag hag” Doris (Lauren Weedman) was the anti-Will & Grace. Their friendship was one of the only honest explorations of the dynamic between gay guys and straight girls that I’ve ever seen in a television landscape where every Real Housewife is always clamoring about “my gays”.

Created by Michael Lannan and directed by Andrew Haigh (of Weekend fame), Looking really found its footing the second time around. No one on the show was perfect and it had a hard time struggling to be all gay things to all gay people, but Looking was an insightful, nuanced and, yes, sometimes slow-moving depiction of what it’s like to be a gay man in modern America. That HBO isn’t bringing it back is a bit befuddling.

Don’t get me wrong, no one watched Looking. Well, every gay man who I am friends with on Facebook posts about it and every homosexual I follow on Twitter loves to give their impressions, good or bad, but outside of a small but ardent fan base, Looking never took off. But that doesn’t usually mean anything for HBO. Getting On, a darker-than-burnt-toast hospital comedy based on the British show, just got renewed for a third season and I would guess just as many (if not fewer) people watched that. Zeitgeisty Girls, no ratings blockbuster itself, was renewed for season five before season four even hit the air. And that show is an inconsistent mess that has been unable to define itself for years.

I have a hard time arguing that a network whose revenue is based on ratings should keep an underperforming show on the air, but things work differently at HBO. As long as their subscriber numbers don’t sag, it doesn’t matter how many people watch their shows, which is how they can keep things like Getting On and Girls on the roster without going belly up. Right now the money and attention it gets from Game of Thrones is enough to keep 20 shows that no one watches churning out season after season.

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So why can’t Looking catch a break? If HBO kept it alive, there are plenty of gay men who would gladly still subscribe. It also makes economic sense to cater to gay men, one of the most loyal audiences around. We’re single-handedly still selling out Cyndi Lauper concerts, so we’ll sign up for HBO through 2050 for another season or two of Looking.

But even Looking was never the hit with gay men the same way that something like RuPaul’s Drag Race is or Queer as Folk was back in the day. The great news is that we don’t need a big gay show now like we did even a decade ago. Gay men are everywhere on TV. One features prominently on Empire, the tube’s latest ratings juggernaut, and one stars in The Big Bang Theory, the biggest sitcom on the air. Neil Patrick Harris hosted the Oscars and Mitch and Cam got gay married on Modern Family, which is conservative Mormon Mitt Romney’s favorite show. There are so many depictions of gay men that we don’t need Looking like we used to.

Still, there is a place for Looking. There are gay characters on lots of shows, but they rarely get to interact or have meaningful relationships with other gay characters. There is no sense of community. There is nothing else that is entirely for and about modern gay life, especially something that looks at it skeptically and with unflinching regard for how sexuality, relationships and the newfound stress of mainstream acceptance manifests itself in those arenas. Grappling with the idea of gay marriage for a generation that never thought they would earn such a right is a lot thornier than just registering at Williams-Sonoma and moving on. No show on the air got that like Looking did.

With Looking failing to catch on (most likely due to its uneven first season and its more auteur-driven sensibility) it will probably be quite a few years before we get another big gay show, so it’s sad to see this one go. Looking was the perfect show for where the gay community is right now – optimistic but skeptical, sexual but bashful, loving but scarred, diverse but universally bearded – and it’s a shame that HBO won’t give us the honor of extending its window just a little bit longer.