Though there has never been an official word that Jennifer Garner & Co.’s CAMPING has packed up and moved on from HBO (which I was sort of waiting for before an announcement) it has indeed done so. It might be more correct to say that the pay-channel did not need to cancel it because the production just stopped going forward with a sophomore season.
The show’s creators, Jenni Konner and Lena Dunham of GIRLS fame, have actually terminated their production relationship with each other and had done so way back after CAMPING’s production ended but before the season got to air. Below is a pull from The Hollywood Reporter from late last year pretty much explaining that the story has been told, but that other vacations by Garner’s Kathryn could happen:
I think we’ve really told the story,” Dunham told The Hollywood Reporter ahead of Camping’s debut, with Konner separately adding that the show “had a targeted ending that we were going for.”
Dunham said she “wouldn’t mind seeing [Kathryn] go to Europe,” and Konner said she’d be “open” to the possibility of more episodes — hopefully “in a hotel or on a yacht; anywhere but a campground,” if HBO wanted to make them. But before the show, which was poorly received by critics, launched, Konner indicated that she and Dunham hadn’t planned to do more seasons.
Konner even went as far as to tell THR about the character relationships post-finale. By the way, you can find that episode review and all our posts regarding CAMPING here. By the way, you can find that episode review and all our posts regarding CAMPING here.
THR: What’s next for Walt and Kathryn? Does that moment in the car indicate that they’re willing to work it out?
JK: I think that’s what it is. I think it’s that we’re broken but we can fix this. It’s a moment that we took from Julia [Davis’] [British version of the] series and I always thought it was sort of the best moment of the whole series because it’s grounded in reality. All of these insane things happened, but we can get through it and we both knew this wasn’t working. You have one way of dealing with it, and I have another way of dealing with it. So I’d like to think that they worked it out.
THR: What about the other couples: George (Brett Gelman) and Nina-Joy (Janicza Bravo)? Joe (Chris Sullivan) and Carleen?
JK: I think George and Nina-Joy are truly done. I think they can’t get through what they had to get through, but I think they’ll be happier now and maybe they’ll have a friendship someday. And probably the sad part is that Joe will probably go into rehab and come out and be grateful for a while and then probably get loaded again. So hopefully Carleen won’t stick around for all of it.
Did you stick around for CAMPING? Were you hoping for more vacation trips than the one limited run you got? Well, you can always relive them on HBONow/Go. CAMPING is officially packed up and we can move on.
