On Wednesday night, The Carmichael Show aired its series finale. Showrunner Danielle Sanchez-Witzel spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the end of the show, early talks of the show being picked up by another network, what a Season 4 would look like and much more.

Spoiler Alert: The season finale saw Jerrod and Maxine get married at a courthouse, the morning after having a threesome.

Photo: NBC
Photo: NBC

On the early talks of the show potentially moving networks, Sanchez-Witzel said “We really felt the support from the studio and there were so many people at NBC network that loved the show too, just not enough to get it another season. I think Jerrod being the star-creator really took the lead in those conversations and what might or might not happen if NBC was going to cancel it.” She didn’t give specifics on any particular networks, saying, “he (Jerrod) has said that he wanted an NBC network TV show and I feel comfortable speaking for him in saying we were really proud of what we did.”

Sanchez-Witzel says she wishes the show had a chance to air in the fall. She explained, “I wish it had been behind The Voice. There are a lot of things that I wish could have happened that were always out of our control. I do think airing in the summer, a year between seasons – none of those things ever helped us ever grow an audience. Even with the people who did support us at NBC, there’s a lot that I wish could have happened that never did. But writers, showrunners, creators, we don’t get to decide that kind of stuff, the business end decides those things. But from how hard we worked and what we were trying to do, I do wish that they had been some other opportunities for people to see our show.”

After earlier mentioning homelessness as something the show wanted to tackle, other topics she said include travel & terrorism and defending Planned Parenthood. “There was an episode about travel and terrorism and fear and where our characters fell with regard to broadening their horizons. We talked about an episode where they were all going to go to Paris but Joe and Cynthia backed out and Jerrod was made because he paid for it. There were lots of things to talk about. Certainly, I don’t think we would have run out of interesting topics,” he said.

Sanchez-Witzel says that just how Bobby found himself by the end of Season 3, there was a plan to do more with Tiffany Haddish’s Nekisha.  “We were able to feature her a bit more in season three and that certainly would have continued to happen in season four.” There was also a plan to have a storyline potentially meeting the son that Joe had before Jerrod and Bobby.

On its legacy, she says, “I hope that people thought it was funny, because I think that’s what we were ultimately trying to be is funny. I think we were trying to have interesting conversations so I wouldn’t mind if people liked it or didn’t like it as long as they thought the conversations were interesting. It made them laugh and it was worth talking about. And maybe watching an episode made them have a conversation with someone else, just that it made you talk about something with your family, with your friends that might have felt too hard to talk about. There’s no right or wrong. Our favorite stories always ended in grey territory where you can’t say one character was right and one character was wrong. It just is..”

You can read the full, insightful interview over at The Hollywood Reporter