What's up with BET's 'Let's Stay Together'?
For years, BET's romantic comedy series "Let's Stay Together" has been paired up with "The Game," but it has always been the lesser of the two in terms of ratings or attention.
Both shows finished their most recent seasons April 29. That month, BET renewed "The Game" for an eighth season.
UPDATE Sept. 29 : The show has been cancelled. Details here.
"Let's Stay Together"? BET was silent and five months later, remains so.
While "The Game" is now back in production in Atlanta, "Let's Stay Together" remains on ice after airing 55 episodes going back to 2011.
A BET spokeswoman said the show has not been cancelled but no date has been set for a new season. Another PR person said BET shot an entire season already.
Through the film office, I found out they last shot "Let's Stay Together" here in the spring of 2013. That's right. The actors and producers and set folks have not been here for more than a year.
This tells me that if BET ever gets around to airing the fifth season of "Let's Stay Together," it will be the last.
UPDATE: Friday, Sept. 12: I just discovered a story in Variety that says BET won a lottery which in California enabling them to get a 25 percent tax credit there, incentivizing folks to come back home, so to speak. It worked for MTV's "Teen Wolf,' which left Atlanta after two seasons and now shoots in California. This means if BET chooses to give "Let's Stay Together" a new round of episodes, it would not do so in Atlanta.
RonReaco Lee, an Atlanta native and one of the stars of the show, has already shot another Atlanta-based comedy for Starz "Survivor's Remorse," which debuts next month.
Is there a chance we'll never see "Let's Stay Together" again?
BET shot 10 episodes of the second season of "Reed Between the Lines" in Atlanta in 2012 but never aired it. So it's not unprecedented.
About the Author
Rodney Ho writes about entertainment for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution including TV, radio, film, comedy and all things in between. A native New Yorker, he has covered education at The Virginian-Pilot, small business for The Wall Street Journal and a host of beats at the AJC over 20-plus years. He loves tennis, pop culture & seeing live events.
