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Pose to end for good with shortened season three

The trailblazing series will return for just seven more episodes this May on FX.

By Will Stroude

Pose will end for good with a shortened season three, it has been confirmed.

The trailblazing series about the lives of transgender and queer people in New York’s ’80s and ’90s ballroom scene will return for just more seven episodes, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed on Friday (5 March).

Pose season three is currently set to premiere on Sunday 2 May on FX in the US, with the series finale set to air on 6 June.

Created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Steven Canals, Pose set a new benchmark for transgender representation on television when it premiered in 2018, featuring the largest cast of transgender and non-binary actors ever assembled for a scripted series, including Mj Rodriguez, Dominique Jackson, Indya Moore, Hailie Sahar and Angelica Ross.

The series was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series at the Emmy Awards in 2019 – the same year show star Billy Porter became the first openly gay Black man to be nominated for and win in an Emmy lead acting category, for his performance as Pray Tell.

Ryan Murphy said in a statement: “We got to tell the exact story we wanted, as we wanted to tell it, and I’m incredibly honored and grateful.”

Steven Canals added in a separate statement: ‘Write the TV show you want to watch! That’s what I was told in 2014 while completing my MFA in screenwriting.

“At the time we weren’t seeing very many Black and Latinx characters — that happened to also be LGBTQ+ — populating screens. And so I wrote the first draft of a pilot the ‘younger me’ deserved.

Pose was conceived as a love letter to the underground New York ballroom community, to my beloved New York, to my queer and trans family, to myself. I, along with my incredible collaborators, never intended on changing the TV landscape. I simply wanted to tell an honest story about family, resilience and love. How fortunate am I to have done that for three seasons.

“I’m filled with gratitude to our intrepid writers, cast, crew and producers who worked tirelessly to make Pose come to life, humbled by our loyal audience, thankful to the ballroom community who trusted us to tell their story, overwhelmed by the critics who warmly embraced us, and forever indebted to Ryan Murphy, FX and 20th Television for changing my life.”

Pose season three premieres on Sunday 2 May on FX in the US.