A confluence of complications wreaked havoc on Younger Season 7 and significantly hampered the appearance of a main character.
In Younger, Tony Award-winner Sutton Foster played Liza Miller, a 40-year-old woman who poses as someone much younger than her actual age to give herself a leg up in the job market.
Liza lands a gig at a high-powered publishing gig called Empirical Press and must maintain the facade that she’s in her 20s, despite frequent circumstances that threaten to out her. Miriam Shor played Diana Trout, Liza’s boss at Empirical.
Miriam Shor’s Diana Trout Was Barely in Younger Season 7
Like many series airing around 2020 and 2021, Younger was a casualty of COVID-era restrictions on film and TV production.
The TV Land original program was moved to Paramount+ for its seventh, final, and much-delayed season. But glaringly absent from Season 7’s callsheet was main cast member Miriam Shor.
As a series regular, Shor played Liza Miller’s mercurial supervisor, the fan-favorite Diana Trout. But prior to Season 7’s debut on Paramount+ in April 2021, it was confirmed by TVLine that Miriam Shor had been dropped down to recurring status along with Charles Michael Davis, who played Zane.
The in-universe reasoning? Diana, who had tied the knot with fiancé Enzo Deluca in Season 6, was on an extended honeymoon in Italy, taking her far away from Younger’s main setting of New York City.
Ultimately, Miriam Shor only turned in a single performance as Diana in Younger Season 7, and it was confined to a Zoom call on a computer screen. Making matters even more upsetting for longtime viewers, Diana received nary a mention for the remainder of the final season.
In the real world, Shor was unable to participate in Younger’s final run due to pandemic precautions. Creator Darren Star commented to TVLine in March 2021 about the absence of Shor and Davis:
“Due to scheduling and COVID related matters, Miriam Shor and Charles Michael Davis were unable to be season seven cast regulars. However, they will always be a much loved and integral part of the ‘Younger’ family and have added so much heart and soul to the series.”
Additionally, Star explained to the New York Times that he and the writing staff of Younger needed to “re-engineer a lot of the story” to comply with pandemic filming guidelines.
What Are the Chances of a Younger Revival?
The final batch of Younger episodes didn’t necessarily light the world on fire. The show enjoyed a good deal of success during its run, but COVID-19 unfortunately took a lot of wind out of its sails.
The end result: A swan song that many were simply not satisfied with.
So, why not take another stab at it? Television revivals have been all the rage in recent years. Will & Grace, Dexter, Frasier, and more have all returned in some form or fashion (and in the case of Dexter, multiple times).
Some of these comebacks were not met with profound success, and many audience members seemingly grow tired of old shows returning. But in the case of Younger, with its kneecapped conclusion, surely there would be some clamor for a follow-up.
Darren Star discussed spearheading more Younger with Deadline back in 2021, shortly after the series finale had dropped.
He questioned the notion of bringing the show back in its original format.
But much like Ron Howard teased at the end of Arrested Development, another series that had an ending steeped in behind-the-scenes chaos, Star mentioned the possibility of a movie:
"I don’t know about rebooting the entire series, but could we come back for a movie at some point, that would be a lot of fun, down the line, to think about."
Paramount, which owns Younger, is currently in a transitionary phase as it was acquired by Skydance Media after a near-brush with bankruptcy. With this in mind, a Younger movie probably isn’t at the top of the studio’s priorities, but as has always been the case in Hollywood, anything’s possible.
Younger is now streaming on Netflix.
