Good Trouble: Why The Fosters Spinoff Was Canceled (Even Though It Deserved Another Season)

The Fosters spinoff, Good Trouble, was canceled prematurely, and it really could have used another season to complete the excellent series. The Fosters premiered on the Disney-owned, ABC family channel, which later became Freeform, in 2013. The beloved series lasted for five seasons before the finale aired on June 6, 2018. While fans may have been sad to say goodbye to the Foster family, they received a huge surprise when a spinoff series was announced, titled Good Trouble, which premiered in January 2019. Good Trouble follows The Foster stars Callie (Maia Mitchell) and Mariana (Cierra Ramirez).

Good Trouble moves the story from the Adams Foster family in San Diego to Callie and Mariana's young adulthood in Los Angeles. There, the foster sisters begin the next stage of their lives, living together in a communal building called The Coterie. There, they navigate new jobs, relationships, and everything else life can throw at them. Good Trouble was even better received than The Fosters, but the ending left something to be desired. Frustratingly, it was unceremoniously canceled after the fifth season was filmed, and the creative team had to make some last-minute changes for things to make sense.

Good Trouble Was Canceled Because Of Freeform Changing Course

The 2023 Writers Strike Also Hindered Production

Sumi (Kara Wang) and Alice (Sherry Cola) raising a glass in a toast in the Good Trouble series finale.

Good Trouble season 6 was canceled because of a confluence of a few things. The number one reason appears to be that Freeform couldn't justify the cost of bringing back the show (via THR). It was announced that Good Trouble would not be coming back in December 2023, just before season 5 part 2 was supposed to air. Good Trouble was canceled alongside another Freeform show, Cruel Summer, which were the channel's last remaining scripted original shows. At the time, Disney was looking to cut costs by $2 billion, and they started with Freeform.

Freeform was dropped from Spectrum channel lineups after Disney and Spectrum came to a landmark deal which seemingly rearranged what channels the telecommunications company would carry. It seems that Good Trouble was a casualty of belt-tightening. This belt-tightening had been going on for years but the 2023 WGA strike exacerbated problems for many studios. This strike combined with the SAG-AFTRA strike put a strain on the studios, ultimately leading to the end of the show. Good Trouble's showrunner, Joanna Johnson said (via TVLine),

"After the writers' strike ended, we were making schedules to get up and running, and I got a call from the network… saying, 'Just a head's up, a lot of things are changing in the business right now, and so, we kind of don't know if we're, for sure, going to get to pick the show up.' We were all very surprised because we had left Season 5 99.9% sure we were coming back for Season 6."

Johnson also mentioned how the Spectrum deal created a perfect storm for the show to be canceled,

"The strikes were long and bruising. And all the networks and studios are scrambling because they're losing money. They have to make cuts in different places. And Freeform was not part of the Spectrum cable deal, and so, they lost a lot of their viewers. So just a lot of things kind of happened."

Disney did allow the Good Trouble team to tap into the company's savings and film additional scenes for the now super-sized finale, allowing Johnson and the rest of the team to say goodbye to the show, even if it wasn't the goodbye they hoped for exactly (via TheWrap).

Joanna Johnson Doesn't Feel Like Her Show Was Canceled

Johnson Knew It Wasn't The Quality Of Good Trouble That Got It Off The Air

Callie (Maia Mitchell) and Jamie (Beau Mirchoff) sitting together in the Good Trouble series finale.

Joanna Johnson was grateful that Disney gave her the chance to refilm for the finale, acknowledging not every series is so lucky,

"There are a lot of really good people in the business, and they really took care of us and let us do that. It would have broken my heart if we had just pulled the plug and not been able to resolve things."

To Johnson, she doesn't consider the show "canceled" in the classic way, she sees it as being a casualty of a changing television landscape that had nothing to do with her show's quality,

I don't feel like the show was cancelled. I feel like things changed, and the landscape changed, and they just couldn't afford to do the show."

She also mentioned how thankful she was to have the support of network execs like Simran Sethi, EVP of Programming and Content Strategy for ABC Entertainment and Freeform, who,

"...fought so hard for us, trying to get us that Season 6. She's been phenomenal, and so has [President of Disney Television Group] Craig Erwich."

Johnson did understand that at a point, there's not much use fighting against the company's business decisions,

"They all tried. But I really understand it comes down to business decisions, and those are hard."

Maia Mitchell wrote on her Instagram story (via TVLine),

"10 years of making TV with my best friend. Could not be more proud of you [Cierra]."

Cierra Ramirez posted her own Instagram upon learning about the cancelation and thanked everyone who had been a part of the journey,

"So many emotions right now after hearing that our beloved show, Good Trouble, has come to an end. The greatest one of all, being gratitude."

It was an emotional cancelation for everyone, but particularly the stars who had been with Johnson and the franchise since The Fosters first premiered in 2013.

Some Good Trouble Season 5 Storylines Could Have Used More Time

Johnson Had To Rush Characters' Storylines To Give Them Proper Sendoffs

The Good Trouble series finale did get to be reshot and in the updated, supersized episode, there's a three-month time jump to show how each character ended up. For the most part, everyone gets a goodbye, and many of them are satisfying fulfillments to five-season-long arcs, but many of them could also have used a few more episodes to flesh out. Malika (Zuri Adele) suddenly got her women's shelter back up and running and announced she was running for city council. This could have definitely been a longer storyline in season 6.

Alice (Sherry Cola) lets everyone know that her acting career is going well and seeing her hosting a TV show certainly would have been an interesting story in Good Trouble season 6. Gael (Tommy Martinez) announces that he turned down an apprenticeship to focus on street art. It's a decision that the audience was not privy to with the rushed ending. Davia (Emma Hunton) and Dennis (Josh Pence) agree to see each other long-distance, but it's left unclear if that's a good idea or if it won't work out. Another season would have helped to flesh out their story.

It's great that Johnson was able to touch on just about every character in the finale, but it's a little obvious that she had to write their endings so quickly, with only a little screen time allotted to each.

The love triangle between Mariana, Joaquin (Bryan Craig), and Evan (T.J. Linnard) is abruptly solved with Evan and Mariana getting back together after Evan nearly died, but the nuances of how exactly they got back together and what Joaquin thinks about it are all left up in the air. It's great that Johnson was able to touch on just about every character in the finale, but it's a little obvious that she had to write their endings so quickly, with only a little screen time allotted to each.

Good Trouble Was A Signature Gen Z Show And Deserved A Sixth Season

LGBTQ+ Shows Are Often Canceled Prematurely

Callie (Maia Mitchell) holding Mariana (Cierra Ramirez) in the Good Trouble series finale.

Good Trouble was one of the signature Gen Z TV shows, and if anything deserved another season, it was Good Trouble. Like its parent series, The Fosters, Good Trouble is one of the few network TV shows with LGBTQ+ representation, and it's an unfortunate pattern that shows with LGBTQ+ characters and stories often get canceled way too soon. The series was filled with LGBTQ+ characters, and it was an important and deliberate choice to make a classic-style network show, populated with LGBTQ+ characters.

It's not a show strictly about that demographic. There is a totally unforced approach to the diversity in Good Trouble and, through that, the series is able to tell a traditional story with characters not often given the spotlight on these TV shows. Spinoffs like Good Trouble and shows like The Fosters are in short supply, but fortunately, creators like Joanna Johnson are still working and someone as talented as her will surely have something coming down the pike soon.