'The Ex-Wife' Returns for Season 2 with a New Ex-Wife

The collapse of Paramount, once a production studio so mighty its name was shorthand for the Supreme Court case that broke up the studio system, has primarily manifested in the U.S. in not-so-obvious ways. They're all small-time complaints that add to a portrait of dysfunction and incompetence, like Paramount's biggest hit, Yellowstone, streams on rival streaming service Peacock; or my endless complaints about how MobLand is being marketed. (How is MobLand being marketed? Poorly; the answer is poorly.)

But over in the U.K. the bellyflop of Paramount+'s ambitions has been much more visible, including the latest series from the company, The Ex-Wife, which is gearing up for Season 2.

Like The Gold, The Ex-Wife was one of the earliest shows Paramount+ greenlit for its "international slate" that never came to fruition, however, unlike several of those series which were canceled mid-filming and never completed, The Ex-Wife wound up a finished series without a streaming home in the U.S. like The Flatshare and The Burning Girls, which was only marginally worse than those that did come to Paramount+ in the States like Sexy Beast and A Gentleman in Moscow.  It actually did better than those last two, winding up streaming on BritBox in the summer of 2023.