News landed Thursday that Rachel Bloom’s ABC comedy pilot with her husband, “Do You Want Kids?” would not be moving forward at the network.
And while most creators would likely lay low, keep quiet and let the news cycle do its thing, Bloom took to Instagram to address the disappointing news head on, admitting that she’s in a period of mourning over “the life I thought I was going to lead with the project becoming a reality.”
“Since people — including myself — mostly use this place primarily to post about success, I want to give a shout out to my other buddy, Failure,” the “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” Golden Globe winner began.
“When a project dies, I mourn multiple things. I mourn the project itself, but I also mourn the life I thought I was going to lead with the project becoming a reality,” she wrote. “We made a show about multiple timelines in the life of a couple, so it feels appropriate to mourn the timeline I thought I was gonna have this year with this show. I thought I’d be flying to N.Y. in May for Upfronts. I thought we were going to hire amazing writers for an L.A.-based writing staff. I thought we were going to start shooting in Los Angeles in August through October. We had so many episode ideas, multiple season arcs.”
Bloom concluded by sharing that “Do You Want Kids?” is not her first brush with failure, but mourning what it could have been is still worthwhile.
“Over the past 6 years I’ve mourned multiple failures, multiple timelines,” she said. “But I never mourn the work.”
“Do You Want Kids” — co-created with husband Dan Gregor, co-starring Rory Scovel and directed by Trent O’Donnell — told the “Sliding Doors”-esque story of a married couple, played by Bloom and Scovel, who over the course of two timelines experience marriage and adulthood with children and without.
The project marked Bloom’s first TV series she created since “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” wrapped after four seasons in 2019. In the year’s since, she’s led her “Rachel Bloom: Death, Let Me Do My Special” comedy special on Netflix last year and co-starred in Hulu’s short-lived but much-loved industry comedy “Reboot,” among many other screen projects.
Next up is “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” now in theaters.
