The Missed Opportunity of <em>Love Is</em>

In June, the airy romantic drama joined a slate of original scripted programming at , the television network co-owned by Oprah Winfrey. The series, executive-produced by the husband-and-wife pair Mara Brock Akil and Salim Akil, was billed as a celebration of real-life romance and the journey of sustaining it. Its summertime arrival drew a wealth of excitement from fans of the veteran entertainment duo, who had previously collaborated on such series as and . Among the show’s champions was Winfrey herself. At its Hollywood premiere, Winfrey about her hopes for the series: “Mara walked in with this story about her actual courtship with Salim, and before she even finished the pitch, I said, ‘Yes, I’m in,’” Winfrey said of her first meeting with the showrunner. “I think the intimacy, the tenderness, the true affection, the real trust, and the most important—wanting youwas renewed for a second season in July, recently announced it would be canceling the show in the wake of allegations against Salim Akil. “ has decided not to move forward with the second season of ,” the network . Although did not name Akil’s alleged abuse as the reason for the cancellation, the timing of the statement and its reference to the show’s (now seemingly compromised) inspiration—“the real-live love story” of the Akils—suggested a link. Though the show’s stated ambitions are now difficult to extricate from the allegations against one of its co-creators, once seemed like an earnest exploration of one couple’s relatably complicated romance. Set in ’90s Los Angeles, the series followed Nuri (Michele Weaver), a bubbly television writer who commits far more easily to her job than to any relationship, and Yasir (Will Catlett), an aspiring director who struggles to maintain both employment and honest relationships. While the season showcased the multiple barriers in their way, the two manage to navigate the pitfalls of love by leaning into its promises. Told primarily through extended flashbacks, the show was framed as a revisiting of the early years of Nuri and Yasir’s romance, timed to the pair’s 20th anniversary. For his part, Salim Akil underscored the importance of not adhering to strict blueprints when it comes to love: “I think that designing your own relationship for yourself, I think hopefully this will inspire people to do that.” In a television landscape characterized by darkness (both literal and figurative), it felt a tad discourteous—or at least unnecessary—to critically disparage the couple’s somewhat cloying rendering of their own romance. Why bother broadcasting an eye roll when schmaltz was likely the worst of it? That Nuri and Yasir, two black protagonists in a romantic series, would admit to histories of sexual trauma without fear of judgment was a story line Brock Akil said she felt both attached to and challenged by. “This is probably one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever made in my creative career, especially when I’m telling the inspired-by version of our story, to be fully honest about who we are as individuals … ” the writer-director said . “For both me and Salim being survivors of sexual abuse, it’s a big part of who we are. It’s also a part of the beauty, the resiliency of who we are, and why we fight so hard and why I’m so thankful to God that we found each other, because we’ve been able to heal through our relationship. You can not only heal from it—we can turn such pain into love, and we can also talk about how to survive it.”